April 10th, 2025

Another island in Indonesia and what a difference from yesterday. Sumba is very clean and it is obvious that people care about their homes and take pride in them. Even though a lot of the homes have no electricity or running water they were clean and well maintained. We had a ship’s tour today and we were warned numerous times that the tour took place on local buses that had no air-conditioning and were quite bumpy.

There were 8 of us per vehicle and the inside is basic. The door on the vehicle does not even close and no such thing as seat belts or shock absorbers. Our tour included a drive to a savannah for an overview and then to a waterfall with a walk down to it. The island is mostly limestone but did have some nice green hills. They also have wild horses.

The view from the top of the hill and some of the wild horses on the island.

After the photo stop we had a 90 minute drive to the waterfall stop. The roads are not the best and most of the time it is single lane and lots of pot holes.

Our line of buses.

The scenery was beautiful and we passed several homes in the middle of no where. They do lots of farming and all the houses had goats, horses and pigs. Most had fenced in yards and everyone we passed waved at us. I am sure we were a sight to see in the middle of nowhere.

A couple of examples of the houses. Most had the high roofs which helps with the heat.

Once we got to the waterfall site it was a long walk past several local houses to get to the stairs to get down to the waterfall. Almost all the houses had dogs and several had puppies.

The trail to the waterfall. Once you got to the stairs it is 220 stairs down to the falls. A group was coming up and we were going down and they said to make sure we went all the way because it was worth it.

Going down was not bad and the steps were well maintained. Coming back up was brutal. Lots of people, including me, had to stop several times to cool off and rest.

There was no place to swim at the waterfall but it was cooler down by the water.

We hiked back up and at the top there were several locals with their motorcycles offering to give rides back to where the bus was parked for a small amount of US dollars. We toughed it out and walked back.

Scenery at the site of the waterfall. Beautiful green hills.

The ride back to the boat was 2 hours.

I kept taking pictures through the open door of the bus and the interior of the bus. Kathy and I had the back seat.

We got back to port at 2:30 and we went up to the grill to get some lunch. After lunch we went back to the room and showered and tried to cool down after a very hot day. We sailed at 3:30.

Sumba at sail away.

We are sailing to Bali and will arrive at noon.