LOSPALOS (How we nearly had to walk 20km !!!) - People of East Timor (8)

Hello my fellow Steemians and welcome to this episode of my “People of East Timor series!”

So far, we started our trip in East Timor's capital Dili, checked out the beautiful Atauro Island, took a bus to a little town called Baucau, watched a cruel but interesting cockfight and finally went on a crazy ride with a pig to Lospalos.

Today I will take you around this village called Lospalos in the east of East Timor!

Meet the kids of Lospalos! (Not really in focus, but I had a lot of fun with them)

So we finally made it to Lospalos, our last station before we would go to Tutuala and then trek down a mountain to go to Jaco Island, the big goal.

Check the map to know what I am talking about:

Lospalos felt like the city consisted of children only. They were everywhere!

Apart from those kids gatherings, the town was pretty empty, almost felt abandoned at some point.

We came to Lospalos right around lunch time, so we looked for a restaurant which turned out to be harder than expected. When we finally found one, we were starving. The food was o.k. (I am not a food guy ;-), don't really care) but crazily expensive. Even back home in Germany, it would have been cheaper. More importantly, though, I took the chance to go to the bathroom, sneak into the family's living room, and take pictures.

After we ate, we had the same problem we had had in Baucau before: How would we go on traveling east? We needed to go the same day, the schedule didn't allow us to spend a night in Lospalos. The only chance we saw, was waiting at the side of the one single road going east. Eventually someone would come and take us. Also, wasn't there supposed to be a bus!? Maybe we would get lucky.

Jana and Thomas waiting with our bags

For three hours, we did not. We were getting more and more desperate. In the end, I proposed to walk the 20km. At first, Jana and Thomas called me all sorts of names from "crazy" to "asshole". Eventually they agreed that it kinda was the only option, even if it would take nearly the entire night.

In the meantime, the kids of Lospalos kept hanging out with us.

Then – and I am not making this up – when we actually had accepted we would walk for a very long time, there was a single truck coming by. The only one. And the driver let us climb up in the back!!!

This time we paid, 30 USD if I remember correctly, but believe me, that did not matter anymore. We felt so lucky. I guess sometimes luck comes to the desperate.

Enough for today, I will go on sharing tomorrow. Stay tuned and follow me for the next episode about how someone wanted to buy Jana for 10USD and how we stayed in an old Portuguese hotel in Tutuala!

Till then,

keep wandering and wondering,

Love,

mr.wonderlust