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