Left earlyish Saturday morning and had a beautiful ride through the mountains in Aileu district. Not Far from Aileu a brave Timorese flagged me down. Brave because most of them are toos cared to ride the bike in Dili, but this kid wanted a ride and who was I not to oblige. Besides, he would be able to point out my turn-off for me.
Road was fine with some big holes and one particularly bad stretch of roadworks but nothing like what was to come. Not long after I took the turn off for Turascai the road deteriorated into gravel, large rocks (about the size of Charlottes head I reckon, if she has the traditional Fuller boof-head anyway!) and clay but the bike handled it no problems. About at this point my camera also ran out of battery. Don't give me that look, I charged it the night before! I think the connection must have been poor or the power went out and came back on again when I was asleep! Then I went around the bend and hit Turascais own mini-meterological system - rain and cold wind for the next 24 hrs until I passed the same point on my way out. I should point out that the mountains that pass through the middle of Timor from East to West are substantially, having a couple of peaks around the 3000 mark and one just in excess of 3000 meters high. Thats about the same as Australia's largest mountain! All in a country smaller than Victoria and only about 100km wide!
I brushed up on my tetutm, he brushed up on his english and we both brushed up on our Indonesian. I found communiciating with these guys easier than communicating with a lot of people in Dili. It might be resentment in Dili, I hope not.
The return trip was interesting. It rained pretty much the whokle time I was in Turascai and the road was very slippery, I burnt a lot of rubber but also learnt a lot about riding through that kind of terrain. On the way home I took a detour off the main road in Aileu and passed down some much steeper roads in a similar condition but because they were dry there was no issue at all with them.
The views all along were breathtaking and the photo's don't do the steepness of the mountains or the depth of colour any justice.
2 comments:
Jacko and I have been watching Long Way Round and your description sounds kind of what Ewan and Charlie experienced road wise in Mongolia. Bad roads but great scenery and fantastic locals.
For the record Charlotte luckily does not have the fuller boof head :)
Hehe, so she got the Fuller boof feet/toe but not the Fuller boof head? Good to see you were contributing where it matters :P
The roads they were on on Mongolia were a lot better than what I was on in Turascai... A lot lot better! This was more akin to what they experienced in places on the road of bones, but with big hills and on a 30% slope.
I loved those series but ultimately they are both wussey actors and just a tad soft really! :)
These guys are REAL explorers:
http://www.neverstopexploring.com/blog/2010/11/the-arch-of-ba-chikele.html
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