Dragons

Trip Start Sep 01, 2008
1
45
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Trip End Mar 2009


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Where I stayed
seraya
(Ruteng hotels)

Flag of Indonesia  , East Nusa Tenggara,
Sunday, December 21, 2008

We landed at Rinca Island about 9am, & walked from the tiny wooden jetty to the national park hut where we paid our fee & were assigned our guide Raymond, who turned out to be excellent.
We saw half a dozen dragons loitering with intent around the park huts obviously hoping for food , but hopefully not us!  They are amazing creatures a cross between a crocodile & a giant lizard, up to 4m long with horrible yellow tongues as long as their heads & razor sharp claws 15 cm long.
Luckily they were the lazy ones at the huts!
We took a 2 hour hike inland up the mountains, and totally melted due to the heat & humidity, we were pleased to see that Raymond a local born & bred on Rinca, was also melting!
We were rewarded by some amazing sights. We were incredibly lucky & saw about another 6 or 7 dragons 2 of which were about to fight & the leader dragon was very ferocious as a challenger approached his rock! he stood up & inflated himself to huge dimensions & hissed dramatically in our direction & opened his mouth to show the fierce razor sharp teeth. It was to scare the other dragon away but our guide did not want to take risks & told us to move away quickly, then he changed his mind & said we should go back for a photo! We also watch Water Buffalo wallowing in mud pools - highly amusing, it reminded us of women at a spa having a mud wrap! The dragons were all in the shade as it was by now too hot for them as well so they were not going to charge us, but we did see how fast they can run when the challenger, turned & fled the big dragon!
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