My lively intestinal system has finally quieted down thanks to the two loperamide HCl tablets I took (better life with better chemistry), so I am now in a better position to appreciate my beautiful surroundings. Today we go back to port, so the schedule of activities is light. First a short hike to oversee Shark Bay, and then snorkeling from the beach to see the young sharks practice going around until they are large enough to venture into deeper waters. The stupid "Baby Shark" ditty kept going through my head, as I followed first one, then another, before concentrating on the other small fish that are also playing around in the nursery. One small type of fish that caught my attention was practically translucent, having almost mastered the trick of invisibility.
By the time I got myself out unto the beach the tourist floodgates had opened, and there were hundreds of heads bobbing out of the water looking at the sharks through snorkeling masks. The local merchants had provided palm leaf shade shelters, rickety bamboo benches, and a few plastic chairs and tables, for the tourists to enjoy a coconut (super popular in Indonesia), Indo-Mie, and a variety of other snacks. Interspersed with these stalls were artisans displaying beautiful weavings, and fantastic wood carvings of Komodo dragons fighting with each other (these statues can be very large, and I was sorely tempted to bring back home one to scare Miguel and Cooper, but better sense prevailed). As I was sitting there, seeing 500 tourists milling around, and 50 boats of the type of the Pada Ini floating at anchor, with 50 tenders moving back and forth between the boats and the beach, I thought contentedly that this is the perfect way for tourism to support the local economy. I had bought the tickets for the cruise through a friend of Irvan's back in Yogyakarta, so a part of the fee went to her, but I hope most of it went to the owner of the boat, her captain, and her crew. Each boat is then a small shop working two 3-day shifts per week, sometimes carrying 8 passengers and sometimes twice as many, but the crew has a job, and the old fishing boat is still generating income. At the same time the local merchants at each of the beaches collect some money from the tourists, who are delighted to have the service and the relaxing beach at hand.
I fell in conversation with a young HVAC engineer and his wife, who were on their honeymoon all the way from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. They had had a great week here in Indonesia and were getting ready to go back home the following morning. He works for a big company but would one of these days like to open his own outfit, so I dispensed him some of my wisdom about how to become a consultant. I will have to check him out in ten years when I go through Kuala Lumpur again.
The last snorkeling event was nice, although not spectacular. We saw lots of starfishes of different species and colors, which are nice to look at but can easily upset the ecologic balance of a reef because they are voracious carnivores. The struggle for survival is alive and well in the reefs of Indonesia.
Back in port we said goodbye to our crew, who have become really good friends, and to our fellow travelers, and thanks to the incomparable hospitality of BMKG, met with our friends Ibu Maria and Viecy and got a ride to the Immigration office near the airport. This is a tale of sorrow: Getting a visa-on-arrival for 30 days is super easy when you first land at an Indonesian airport (in my case Jakarta), but they take serious exception to folks overstaying their visas (mine expires June 28, and I depart July 1), with all sorts or penalties and future travel bans. But there is a procedure to ask for a visa extension, using a very poorly designed app. Sometimes it is not clear what they are asking for (e.g., I learnt at a later time that when you are asked for your address, you are not supposed to give your home address, but the address in the city where you will complete the procedure, in person, at the immigration office), or the date format they want doesn't go past a certain date, or you have to pay 500,000 rupiah but cannot do it because my stupid bank in the US wants to text me a code at my US phone (which of course I don't have because I am in Indonesia and not in the US), and ... Finally, with a lot of cursing and the help of my superdaughter, who made the payment using her credit card, I got to the last step "Go to the immigration office and have your picture taken". So BMKG brings me to the immigration office only to learn that no, the immigration office I have to go to is in Jakarta. :(
Seeing my deep look of disappointment the young immigration agent quickly reviewed my options: 1. Go to Jakarta; 2. Start the petition all over again, here at Labuan Bajo and expect to have it completed in 5 days; 3. Overstay my visa and pay a fine of 1,000,000 rupiah per day (I would overstay my visa for 3 days, so we are talking about 3,000,000 rupiah). Making sure he understood that I was fully respectful of the laws of the land, I though my best option was number 3. That mollified him, and he asked me to wait a moment while he asked the boss, who agreed to petition Jakarta to transfer the file to Labuan Bajo. If Jakarta agrees, then tomorrow I could come back to immigration to have my picture taken! Mind you, there were no assurances because Jakarta moves in slow and mysterious ways, and outside of screwing our plans for tomorrow Thursday it appeared the best option.
From there we stopped at an optician's shop, where I had to have my glasses repaired. The two attendants went out of their way to assess the damage (the screw that holds the ends of the lens frame had sheared), performed a delicate drilling operation to remove the dead end, and installed a new bolt (looks a little like a Frankenstein bolt, but I am sure it will last forever). All this work at no charge, once again confirming that Indonesians are the kindest people in the world.
To celebrate I invited all of us to dinner at La TaquerÃa, a Mexican restaurant run by a young Italian man that was unusually good. We had chorizo nachos as an appetizer, tacos de birria de res for Irvan and our driver, tacos de chorizo de res for Maria, quesadilla con carne de res for Viecy, and tacos de pulpo for myself (and finally a beer :) Of course there were many questions about what each dish involved, a practical demonstration on how to eat tacos, the phonetic similarities between Spanish and Indonesian (and the very few differences). We had a lot of fun, and Viecy plans to have at least basic Spanish by the time I come back to Labuan Bajo.
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