East Timor: The trip to Atauro Island
East Timor: The trip to Atauro Island
The last time I was in East Timor I didn’t have the chance to visit Atauro Island so this time I decided to do it.
The first problem is that there is only one ferry on Saturdays and you have to be there very early to stand up in a big long line to get your ticket.
The second problem is if you don’t get your ticket or lose the boat on the way back you must stay until next Saturday or get a very expensive boat to bring you back to Dili.
5 am – wake up, fruit breakfast and prepare to walk 25 minutes in a still waking up city until the ferry.
Photos in the morning
View to the Right
View to the left
In Front Atauro still dark
Sun coming up behind Atauro Island
The ferry is scheduled for 7:00 am, but this rarely happens.
In the way out at the door of the hotel, I just asked a local person, if I was on the right way to the ferry and this generous person just said in the Portuguese language, please jump on my motorbike because I’m heading that way.
This great crazy driver flew us to the boat, wished me good luck, and refused to accept any money I wanted to offer.
5:30 am - I get in the small port prepared for a 2-3 hour stand in line to get the tickets, but I find an empty Ticket sale office.
Using the Portuguese Language, one person told me that there were no more tickets they had all been sold last Friday (the day before).
So, I sadly decided to sit down in a crowd of maybe 900 hundred local people and a big unity of soldiers and military trucks to photograph the ferry supposedly leaving at 7 am.
6:30 am - All of a sudden a person approaches and tells me that he can go inside the ferry to get a ticket for me.
Suddenly rejoiced, I sit and wait for this new possible trip.
Thirty minutes later, Albertino is his name, shows up and tell me I have to pay five dollars for a ticket that would have cost four dollars and surprisingly he gets me inside the ferry. :)
The famous ticket from the Ferry
I try to pay 10 dollars for the ticket and he refuses to accept it (just the agreed 5) and even gets me free coffee from the ferry that only left at 8:30 am (1:30 delay).
What a beautiful landscape in the sea, seeing both islands, Atauro in front and East Timor on the back.
6 minutes later - what a change
The little port we left and the views of Dili from the ferry
The ferry always came back to Dili at 3:00 pm and you can’t lose it.
Approching Atauro
Meanwhile, a man with a megaphone speaks to all the people in Tetún the dialect of East Timor, that I understand only a few words.
As the face of the crowd didn’t look happy I decided to ask one of the passengers – a Marine from East Timor if he could translate to Portuguese what the man had said.
He tells me that the schedule of the ferry to get back would be at 2 pm, not 3 pm.
I’m happy I made the question because I would have but I realized I had no time to go all around the island as planned, and I decided to go just to the village of Makili to the left of the Port of Atauro.
So i step down in Port of Atauro where the local beach and markets are located.
So I go on the way to Makili in Honda 750 cv motorbike with a trailer for 12 people.:)
Back to the local market of Port of Atauro
The way back to Dili
Wiki : Atauro Island (Tetum: Pulau Atauro or Ata'uro, Portuguese: Ilha de Ataúro is a small island situated 25 km north of Dili, East Timor, on the extinct Wetar segment of the volcanic Inner Banda Arc, between the Indonesian islands of Alor and Wetar. Politically it comprises one of the subdistricts of the Dili District of East Timor. It is about 25 km long and 9 km wide, about 105 km2 in area, and is inhabited by about 8,000 people.
The nearest island is the Indonesian island of Liran, 12 km to the northeast.
My Last posts on East Timor:
East Timor: Travelling in a Paradisiac Island
East Timor: the way from Dili to Railaco
Beautiful landscapes indeed!
(Finalmente começo a encontrar mais Portugueses por aqui. Pensei que fosse um dos poucos.)
Olá @brumest
Boa mais um português. :)
Já trouxe bastantes portugueses para o Steemit, e esta semana aqui em Timor consegui 2 novos portugueses - @nolasco e @ginga - bem como o primeiro timorense no Steemit - @maliikun - que fala bem Português e é um excelente tradutor que fala Bahasa e Tétun .
Olá @charlie777pt,
Sim, já tive o prazer de me cruzar com ambas aqui no site.
Também já consegui trazer alguns amigos, mas todos de outras nacionalidades. Pessoal que tenho vindo a conhecer ao longo dos anos, noutras plataformas ligadas a fotografia.
Nice pictures, I'm following you now.
Thanks a lot. :)
More pics on the way.
Beautifuk pictures and nice content. Thanks for sharing. 100% upvoted from @chanthasam
Thanks a lot @chanthasam
I've been around the world but never took a camera, it's my first time because some steemian friends asked me to take photographs of my journey. :)
Interesting place, nice pics
Upvoted!
Yes very strange and beautiful.
My youth was in a tropical country in Africa so here I feel at home.:)
Thanks
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Thanks for sharing! Though I have friends who have visited the Philippines and Indonesia, East Timor is a place I know very little about, so your posts are really interesting to follow. I love the sunrise (sunset?) on your first picture, and the rocky beach with the boat is also a visually striking picture. What led you to travel here? Do you have family on the island?
I'm just working and teaching in some communities in Railaco and Ou-Coussé until the end of July.
I've already had been in East Timor in 2007 for 1 month and one week.
Lovely country with the taste of my youth living in Africa.
I'm glad you were able to get on the boat to Atauro island! Those pictures were great. I noticed at the local market, they had four bottles of what looks to be water, but it was very white and murky, was that water? And it seems like the people in East Timor are very nice and respectable. They never took any extra money or took advantage of you. Thanks for sharing :)
The white stuff the famous palm wine. :) A local drink extracted from a palm tree very famous all over Africa and Asia.
In the morning after extracted is simple juice without alcohol and it's very tasty and refreshing.
As long as the day goes on it starts fermentation and became an alcoholic drink.
Here and in Angola, I love to drink the non-alcoholic form.
Tali metan (Corypha utan) and Tuaqueira (Arenga pinnata), are some of this trees , to extract the sap (tuaca) with the local name of tua mutin or white wine.
Oh ok! That makes me feel better lol I was hoping the water wasn't that murky. Thanks for the insight! It just goes to show that different cultures have different delicacies and you never know what you're going to find
Gostei muito do texto e das fotos. Ataúro é realmente uma ilha muito bonita e atrai muitos turistas. Como timorense, tenho pena, pois até agora ainda não fui lá, Hehehe...!!!
The view of distance mountains is so amazing!