Dino Lopez: A Guide to Flores

While in Ubud we had to make a familiar but often difficult decision for any traveller, where do we go next? Considering that we had 19 days left on our visa we chose to fly two hours eastwards to Maumere, which is the principal town on the magnificent and less touristic island of Flores. The flight was quite an experience, they gave me full responsibility for the emergency exit and we were the only plane at the two tiny airports where we landed but it actually went much better than we thought. Safe and sound at the other side we met two more of the very few westerners on the plane, a French couple who like us were between luggage reclaim and taxi. A taxi is never easy when landing as a backpacker at an Asian airport and we were soon surrounded with shouts of "Hello meeesta!". To our Surprise one man was ushered our way and in exceptionally good English we started to chat, his name was Dino Lopez.

The Dino Lopez who became our guide for the next 10/11 memorable days! On the first night and after some strange goings on we settled down and started to consider his proposition to take us across the island as a group of four. Thanks to a little internet research, an evening meal, a prior passenger from New Zealand who was hanging out at his place and finally his experience of living in Amsterdam for more than three years - we said yes! The next few entries will take you through our adventure, the people, places and events that made Flores very very memorable. We also promise to put lots of photos to make you jealous - especially near the end! ;)

Apres Ubud, nous ne savions pas vraiment ou aller et avons decide au dernier moment de nous laisser tenter par l'ile de Flores, beaucoup moins touristique! Des que nous avons atteri a Maumere, nous avons fait la connaissance d'un couple de francais qui comme nous, ne savaient pas trop ce qu'ils allaient faire sur cette ile. Et c'est la que Dino Lopez est apparu, telle la providence!

Apres mure reflexion, Dino est devenu notre guide touristique/ chauffeur durant ce memorable periple de 9 jours de Maumere a Labuan Bajo.

Dino Lopez: A Guide to Flores

Maumere, Indonesia