We had just stopped along the side of the road to admire some spices (more about this in another post)... As is my style, I ended up chatting with the locals who were standing around... asking about the area, the spices, their gardens and farms... chit-chat. Of course, my obvious interest led to an invitation to go see some of their lush forest gardens, with promises of not only all these spices on the trees in their natural state, but almost all the fruits I have ever heard of in Indonesia, plus a few I never had!
Pala, or nutmeg... one of the main export commodities of the spice Islands. The fruit is actually quite tasty, and the under-ripe fruit (above) is extremely sour, but supposed to be very good for cleansing the palate, or curing halitosis.
Oh and that wasn't all... our elderly gentleman tour guide was eager to show us the villages 'flying water' (air terbang). Huh? Yes, you heard it right... When I first heard him say this, it took me a few seconds, then a smile of recognition played on my lips as I realized he was talking about a waterfall (usually, air terjun)! Only here in Waka, the water doesn't just fall as it does in other part of Indonesia and the world, it FLIES! YES! Sign me up, that was the clincher... flying water... let's go!
Well, the flying water was no longer flying in all the glory of its more formidable days when it was given the moniker, but we enjoyed the walk through the forest freshness anyway! It seems agricultural activities up-stream have stemmed the flow of water and reduced it to a mere quarter of its original size.
 |
| Waka "Flying Water" Waterfall |
Of course, it started to POUR just as we were heading back down, and after taking shelter for half an hour it was apparent the rain wasn't letting up, so we fashioned ourselves some local umbrellas and continued on our way!
No comments:
Post a Comment