Flores Island Overland Part 3: Ruteng to Manulalu

Between Ruteng and Manulalu Jungle Resort, our next night’s accommodations, we had a beautiful drive down towards the southern coast, along the beach, then back up into the mountains. All along the way, local people were selling home-produced sopi, the local liquor. It’s similar to arak, the more well-known version of palm liquor made on Bali. We tried different versions of sopi all over Flores, and found it to have an interesting flavor that locals were happy for us to try. For the people of Flores, sopi is an important drink that is enjoyed on festival days. Because the new year celebrations fell during our time in Flores, sopi was available everywhere.

Roadside stand selling sopi in old beer bottles

Aristo pulled over to one of the roadside stands so we could see the distillation process. We walked back behind a small house to check out the still set up where the owner was tending the fire. Sopi dripped out of long bamboo distillation tubes into what looked like repurposed cooking oil jugs. The owner let us taste his product, which was a smooth, distinctly-flavored spirit that burned a little on the way down. Elsewhere on Flores we tried cocktails made with sopi, and some pre-mixed specialty bottles of sopi, like the fun Dr. Arak we had at Heaven’s Door Bar & Restaurant.

Stills used to produce sopi. The distillation tubes are long pieces of bamboo

The end of the distillation tube where sopi is collected. The sopi coming out of this tube had a nice flavor, but is hard to describe.

Sampling Dr. Arak at Heaven’s Door Bar & Restaurant, Bajawa

Dr. Arak is good for what ails ya’. Moke is another name for sopi.

Between Ruteng and Manulalu we also stopped off at Bena traditional village. It is a village of thatched Bajawa-style houses around a central square. Unlike at the Manggarai village we visited where most people had modern housing, Bena is pretty much all thatched houses, with around 300 people living there in 45 houses.

Bena traditional village. The umbrella-like structures at the center are Nga’du, which symbolize male ancestors, and the house-like structures in the center are called Bhaga, and symbolize females. According to the young women of the village who gave us our tour, near these structures are where the village buries its dead.

Bena village children and a house decorated with water buffalo skulls

After a long day of driving, it was time for a swim in the Malanage Hot Springs. Adam and I had been to hot springs in Colombia, and we were expecting some kind of business where you pay a little money to swim in a somewhat developed hot spring area. This was not that kind of hot spring. Aristo parked the car next to a roadside stall, and we walked across the road and down a short lane to a disused flat space that might once have been a parking lot. Then, we walked into the woods.

We ended up just swimming in the river there. It was so amazing! The water that came out of the spring upriver was so hot you couldn’t even stand in it, and it mixed with very cold water coming out of another nearby spring. The result was a flurry of just-right temperature water that spilled over large boulders. We sat on the boulders, enjoying the hot and cold washing over our tired limbs, taking in the beauty of the scene. What a fantastic find!

Adam standing overlooking the hot springs. The pool behind him to the right of the photo was so hot you couldn’t even step in it, and the pool up and to the left of him was very cold. The large rock down and to the left of him is where we sat to enjoy the springs as hot and cold mixed together.

Last stop of the day was Heaven’s Door Bar and Restaurant and Manulalu Jungle Resort. The resort has beautiful bungalows with balconies that overlook the valley below and mountains beyond, with the volcano Mt. Inerie visible as well. It was a fantastic place to stop for the night!