Ira Lalaro - going to Lospalos

Ira Lalaro is a huge lake and sump land in the most eastern mountains of Timor Leste. In the south of it, you can find one of the most natural, untouched rainforests in the world. Due to Indonesian occupation, Timor Leste not only was suffering from the cruelties of the occupators, but missed more than two decades, in which the rest of south east asia started a massive development. Because of that, it's economy and development is far behind, but on the other hand, a lot of mistakes, especially about environment and profit-driven destruction, weren't made, here. So daily life is -outside of the cities- still very simple and nature often is untouched. Infrastructure is very bad, too, of course, as Indonesians destroyed a lot of it, for fighting the resistance.
So Ira Lalaro is an area, where nature is still used for farming in a very natural way, but most parts of the sump land and the wide grasslands of the highlands around, are untouched and only used for letting cows and buffalos go around.
Driving right through these lands (mostly on tiny, even sometimes disappearing, bike paths) was amazing, being the only human for kilometers around, meeting animals and exploring these lands, was unbelievable.
Seeing some tiny, old (not maintenanced) roads/paths into the rainforest, I couldn't resist exploring that too. Close to getting stuck, a few times, not able to reach the small lake, far out in the wilderness, but enjoying this beautiful, wild and raw nature, not seeing the sun, or even more than 2-3 meters into the jungle, due to massive, huge and spreading vegetation.
Spent so much time there, again and again exploring tiny paths, leading to anywhere, that I quite late arrived at Lospalos, but had an amazing day of exploring one of Timor Leste's least inhabited parts. 🥰
Lospalos is a small town, too, famous for the most beautiful (and most expensive, according to the marriage portion) women and the surrounding mountains. Stayed only one night there, as the village itself was explored quite quickly, but enjoyed it very much, too, as people were so kind and welcoming, even if communication was very basic and mostly a mix of English, Indonesian language and hand-and-feet-talking. 😅Read more