Indonesian travels: From Yogyakarta to Rosa's Ecolodge is a long way...

We stopped briefly in Sarabaya again on schedule for Indonesian time after an overnight train ride. Before we left Yogya we had another fine dinner and a late night "see you later" sad parting at the train station with our Indonesian family. In the morning we were able to purchase our next train ticket at the station at 6 AM with Laurie handling the bahasa indonesian smoothly so we could continue our trip on to Banuwangi. This ride includes some of the best scenery of Java we've seen too. On the ride we were in close contact with Nana by text messages and she then communicated with Rosa's Ecolodge and made arrangements for them to pick us up when the train arrived around 4 pm. The trip and pick-up went very smoothly and we soon learned that the drive to the lodge involved a lot of slow heavy truck traffic and much flinching on our part as everyone passes whenever they can no matter what road/traffic conditions confront them. We were headed for Rosa's Ecolodge and Baluran National Park in this area of Java.

We arrived tired but intact an hour later and were greeted warmly by Ahmed and sent to rest in our large clean comfy room with hot tea served soon afterwards outside. There was no sign of Rosa or Rene or Rinzal who we expected to see. Later we had a feast of an indonesian meal prepared by Ahmed in the small lodge resturant. This pattern would be repeated over the next three days where we were the only guests except the first night when a young couple from Holland stayed over. We decided to have all our meals at the lodge and were very happy with that decision! We also enjoyed our time on our porch "working" at the table while we watched the many insects, especially butterflies, in the great garden at the lodge. We also enjoyed sunbirds, swiftlets and munias in the garden too and especially the geckos calling out their name at night.

We rested up the next morning after some very heavy rains the during the night. The young couple decided to head to Sarabaya by train after a motorbike ride through the park. They had earlier met a classroom of children and been asked to be interviewed and become a "class project". They decided to follow-up and visit the school in person after talking to us about how unique such an offer could be. We passed them coming out as we headed into the park for our wildlife viewing "safari".

With Nana's help we had arranged to go on a night safari in Baluraun National Park (check out the Indonesian website or this Wiki website) which is one of the regular tour for Rosa's. This is the off season for these tours due to the rains and the greater difficulty with access and wildlife sightings. Ahmed put together a hybrid tour for us to see the park in the evening and night for wildlife viewing. We had a very good break with the weather and headed out around 3 pm in a old but sturdy land cruiser set up with external racks and full seats on the roof. We arrived at the park with a few more scary traffic encounters to get our blood pumping. Up on the roof in the park, we had quite a few wildlife sightings including hornbills, kingfisher and other species we'd never seen before. The driver and Ahmed our guide and lodge host worked hard to give us more sightings of birds and other wildlife too. We saw a number of new species including the Largest Bats I've ever seen, Woolly-necked storks, wild cats, deer, bison skulls, nightjars, hornbills, wild jungle fowl, green pea fowl, kingfisher and much more. We really enjoyed the ride and made a stop to climb down and then up to the top of an observation tower for amazing views of the savanna habitats including the acacia thornbush problem that was imported and now must be controlled. We then left for the park beach where we stayed until after the fireflys and mosquitos came out and had a tasty dinner with Ayam Satay (grilled chicken) was cooked and served while the clouds parted long enough for a good look at southern stars and a hazy moon. We then climbed back up on the roof for our routinue ride and spotlighting of wildlife. We had no problems with rain but did see fewer sightings due to timing and conditions. Ahmed continued to apologize that we didn't see more but we were quite happy with the opportunity and saw enough things to keep us thinking about for a long while. It was also a fine night outing for us and gave us much to think about for making such experiences more popular!

During our three day plus stay we learned that the lodge owner is away for an extended period due to illness and the manager is away due to the season. The staff present and in particular Amed, did a fine job of making our stay very nice and rewarding. We still don't understand how things are working at the lodge but everything was more than fine for us the entire time we were there. We did miss the wireless internet which has been done and the locked cabinet of field guides and other interesting Indonesian books. Ahmed apologized for both but I think that was out of his control. He also stayed over away from his family overnight in case we needed anything and was very insightful during our discussions on life in indonesia. He teaches as his second job and reminded us regularly of the many differences between our countries and things we have to learn here still.

We spent the day after our late night safari hanging out at the lodge working remotely again with Nana who was home sick using "relay email" (we send text messages and she does the internet work) to explore options for our next move. We ended up with some very good partially worked out options and head out in the morning to catch a train to Sarabaya and perhaps Malang before we book a Pelni boat and hopefully cruise over to Selewesi or Kalamantan for some more wilder exploring. We are also interested in the cruise itself as these big ships make regular circuits around the islands and sound like an unusual and interesting way to get around. We need to be back in Bali afterwards too for some final activities missed earlier and then begin to travel back to Java with a few stops along the way before we arrive at Jakarta and our last visits before home.

While at Rosa's Ecolodge we also did some serious thinking about a possible ecotour/travel project that would be very exciting and tie us closer with Nana and family to develop a sustainable venture here. Lots more to think about on that subject but first we have some more exploring to do! It has also been a very new experience to go without the internet for over a week now. It took a while to get used to but we've enjoyed it and should go "offline" like this more often...

Here are a few small photos with better ones coming from Laurie's camera later.