Jamroni and Hilmar, our ProMod racer, came to pick us up at 8:30 am, with the idea of spending the day looking at the highlights of the karst terrain that forms the hear of the Geopark Maros Pangkep. We had to drive for 50 km to get there, which gave me plenty of opportunity to watch Hermann's technique. The challenges of the road were the same I had faced while in Kalimantan, but whereas I proceeded carefully, slowing down to let others complete their overtakes or turns, Hilmar relies on speed to beat all cars to the next open spot, a visceral understanding of how wide his car is and the tightest spots he can get through, and very fast reflexes. I was happy when I got up to 60 km/hr on the road, whereas Hilmar easily reached 100 km/hr over a few hundreds of meters, just to decelerate to a crawl in a manner of seconds. I am humbled.
Our first stop was at the Archaeological Park of Leang Leang, a cave complex that has cave paintings of waves in the ocean, fishes, wild pigs, wild goats, and lots and lots of stenciled hands. Unfortunately the humid weather is not very conducive to preservation, but it is still humbling to think that ancient human groups lived here, collecting water and grains and fruits, hunting, and devoting some time to artistic pursuits.
The second stop was at the "Karst Village of Rammang Rammang" (cool how Indonesians use repetition of some words to make their language more musical), which takes advantage of the spectacular landscape to entice tourism to visit the village. One starts with a boat ride through mangroves and bamboo copses that ends at the village's dock. From here you can follow a raised plank way that goes around the village, its fish ponds, and its rice paddy fields. Everywhere you look (mind you, the planks are not very sturdy, so you have to keep an eye on where you place your feet) there are spectacular views of tall limestone pillars that easily rival those I have seen in Vietnam and China. We contributed to the local economy by having a coconut and some noodles, but clearly they would like to see a much higher foot traffic.
After going around for a couple of kilometers on the rickety plank-covered path, always remembering to step on the nails that attach the planks to the lengthwise supports, we reached the dock. The dock looked pretty new, and for a moment I was distracted by the question of paying the boatman, when I stepped in the middle of a plank and ... crash ... it broke and my left leg went straight down all the way to the thigh. Ay, ay, ay. My thigh was wedged in solid, and fortunately the thigh bone is pretty strong because I wrenched it something awful. Twenty hands reached down to help me, but I was stuck fast, feeling very stupid, and it took a while to extricate me from my predicament. Jamroni promptly exposed the leg and gave me a vigorous massage, just like when as a kid I was made to forget of the pain by receiving a "frieguita". Somehow I made it to the boat, and at the other dock gimped my way around trying to restore walking function.
While doing that I saw, in a small store, the most beautiful collections of butterflies, framed in sets of half a dozen to a dozen specimens. I suspect such collections would be considered illegal if they were brought into the US, but they sure were amazing to look at.
We made a third stop to visit a "Forest of Stone", which is the fancy name given to a meadow surrounded by small limestone pillars intricately "carved" by dissolution. With a bit of imagination you could see a pine tree here or a dragon there. By then it had started to rain, and I was having problems hopping from rock to rock, so that particular visit was somehow short.
Hermann knew of a good fish restaurant close to where we ended, an we had a delicious late lunch-early dinner with grilled fish, breaded calamari rings, collared greens, soy bean sprouts, and of course all the rice one can care to eat. It was very yummy.
I had to stop at a sports store to buy a new pair of boots, because the sole of the cheap ones I had bought for Field Geology Methods became partially detached. So now I have a good pair of Indonesian boots. I just hope they are not too narrow because here nobody has to worry about extra-wide shoes. Ah, the small challenges life throws in the way of the adventure traveler.
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