The Long Haul to Bima… Part 3.

Sumbawa…!!

"Er... Will this be a beach landing then, skipper...??"

The jetty runs alongside the beach allowing only one boat at a time to dock...!!

The name sounded more African than Indonesian to me, and looking out at the scorched and mountainous landscape from the deck of the ferry, I was reminded of parts of northern Ethiopia and Sudan…even southern Egypt…!!

This island was clearly very different to those that I had already passed through…

Java, Bali and Lombok were lush and green, while the parched and dry reaches of the island I could see, were positively barren in comparison…

The reasons for this go back almost two hundred years…!!

Bima was a mere 350 km away... Should be a cinch...!!

In 1815, the Gunung Tambora Volcano on Sumbawa, exploded with one of the largest eruptions ever recorded… In terms of the lava and ash it released into the atmosphere, the eruption was four times that of the Krakatoa Volcano which erupted in 1883…!! And that is what Volcanologists call “a biggie”…!!

It reduced the mountain from its previous height of 4200 m, to the 2850 m it is today…!! It is estimated that it killed more than seventy thousand people, reducing a once fertile landscape, like that of its neighbours, Lombok to the west and Flores to the east, to the lunar wasteland it is today…

Passed many fishing villages like this one, squeezed between the highway and the sea...

The explosion forever altered the climate and topography of the island, sending the area into perpetual darkness for over two years…!! The effect was felt as far away as Europe, where during the Napoleonic Wars, there is record of “a year with no summer”… Temperatures in Europe remained far lower than usual that year… And shirt collars remained gray, despite constant washing…

Due to the drought that persists on the island, almost half its population now seeks work on other islands or in the Middle East and other Muslim dominated countries…

Gold and Copper were discovered here in the 1990’s and a massive mine was built near the south-western tip of the island… It holds one of the world’s largest copper reserves, and yet the island seems to be stuck in a time warp of sorts, in terms of development…!!

Apart from two young guys from New Zealand, who on their hired scooters, loaded with their surfboards, chatted to me while the ferry was being offloaded, I was the only Westerner on board… After the three of us had ridden off the boat together, they turned south towards Maluk to find some beaches to surf at…

From that moment on, I did not see another Western face until I reached Sape on the far eastern side of the island…!!

People I had spoken to on the ferry had raised their eyebrows when I told them I was riding to Bima that same day… They looked at their watches and then back at my face to see if I was joking, presumably…!!

“It is now 10.00am, and you wish to ride to Bima today…!! It takes ten to twelve hours by bus, my friend…!! Better to stay in Sumbawa Besar today and then go to Bima tomorrow…!!” they all advised…

“But it is only 350 km away…!!” I replied with a frown, “Why would it take that long..?”

“It is the road, you see…!!” they smiled knowingly… “Actually now it is damaged all the way from Besar to Bima…!!”

“How do you mean damaged…??” I asked…

“Damaged, damaged…!!” came the reply, accompanied with shakes of their heads and morose expressions that were rather comical…

“In fact, it is mostly sand…!! To Besar it is good…, but from there…!!”. More head shaking and some “tsk-tsking”…!!

“Well boys, I have eight hours of sunlight, and with Besar only 140 km away, I aim to put horns on the road to Bima today…!!” I said loudly…

I was sure that they did not understand the “put horns on” South African expression, which means “to overcome” or “do something in a big way”, but they certainly got the gist of what I was saying, and with wide smiles, burst into a short round of applause…

Not unlike that which Evil Knievel probably got as he was lining up to jump his bike over twenty buses…!!

Stopped in Sumbawa Besar for a breather... Everything was going swimmingly up to that point...

The road to Sumbawa Besar was paved and rather bumpy, and ran all along the coastline of the Flores Sea, passing through small fishing villages built right on the water… Boats were berthed under some homes while others lay tied up at wooden jetties in what normally would have been the “front garden”…!!

After an hour and a half of fast riding, I entered Besar and sat the bike for a while in the shade of a large tree on the main road leading through the town…

There was only 210km left to go to Bima, and it had just gone 11.30am… I had to admit that I was feeling a little tired, having been awake since 6.00am the previous morning… Thirty hours without sleep will apparently do that to one…!!

I stopped at a service station and filled two of my four petrol containers, just in case… I had covered about 270 km since leaving Ubud, most of it at a reasonably economical pace, so I was confident that I had at least another 100 km in the tank…

Surely there must be a petrol station between here and Dompu…!! (Turns out there wasn’t…!!)

So….210 km… Worst case scenario… About four hours, I figured…!!

“I could be in Bima in time for high tea…!!” I chuckled to myself, as I let the clutch out, stood up on the pegs to ease the ache in my lower back, and headed out of town, smiling to myself as I went…

My first day back on the road was already a memorable one, and I wanted even more… I can be greedy like that, you see…!!

Just outside Bima, Gi-Gi flashed a message that she knew absolutely nothing about the road ahead, and all she could tell me that we were “riding on road”… For the remainder of the ride, I had to keep minimizing the screen to see what progress we were making across the island…

A few kilometres further on, I saw a dust cloud billowing into the sky… Getting closer, I saw that it was made by an oncoming bus…!!

“Must be overtaking on the verge…!!” I thought hopefully…!!

My hopes were dashed a few seconds later…

The laughing stops here...!! Smiles turned to concern...

But at least others were battling along with me...!! I took solace that I wasn't the only silly bugger on two wheels out there...!!

The tarred road came to an end after that, and but for a few patches of newly laid asphalt, remained in a state of what I can only euphemistically call, “under repair”…!!

It took seven and a half hours to cover the next 210 km to Bima… By 2.00pm, I knew that my “high tea” would be ice cold when I got there…!!

I spent most of the time thinking up names for the idiots who had torn up every inch of a 200 kilometre stretch of road in order to re-lay it…

The rest of the world did this in sections, but here in Sumbawa, the contractor who was awarded the job of first tearing up the road, had gotten more than a little “ahead of himself”, in my humble opinion…!!

Buses and trucks that made this run had ground the sand down in some stretches to the consistency of talcum powder, and dust billowed up from the front wheels… Behind me a long plume of dust made “rooster-tails” as we buzzed along at between 30 and 40 km/h at best…

Close to some of the scattered homesteads I came across, small patches of vegetables grew, but for the most part, the crops I saw were withered and dying… The Indonesian Government steps in regularly to provide basic food to the population of Sumbawa’s central regions, and had been doing for years apparently…

Sumbawa's dry and windswept interior... Reminded me of the Northern Cape...in a bad year...!!

The road also twisted and climbed up over steep ridges and dropped into steeper valleys, using a series of hairpin bends that had me sitting down in the saddle rather than up on the pegs, figuring that if the bike went down, I wouldn’t have that far to fall…!!

The chief crop seems to be these little red onions...

But for most of the ride, I stood up to see the obstacles ahead; dodge rocks and potholes; try to stay out of the deeper ruts; and pick a line that would avoid oncoming traffic…

Stopped at a little shack on the prairie to find something to drink...

I have no idea of the names of the villages I passed through, but it was evident that none of them catered for the passing tourist trade…!!

Thirsty as all hell, I eventually found a small kiosk next to the road and stopped to buy some Pocari Sweat… I drank two bottles while I stood in the shade cast by the plastic awning, then bought two more and a packet of biscuits before heading out to tackle the road again…

Overtaking buses and trucks on the narrow track was not easy, as the drivers generally could not see that there was somebody behind them, so thick was the dust…

To make matters even more uncomfortable, it was blisteringly hot, the heat drawing all moisture from both me and the parched countryside we rode through…

Any closer and we would need waterwings...

After another 50 km stretch of gravel, we stopped to take a rest...

Looking a bit bemused by it all... It had just dawned on me that I was never going to get to Bima before nightfall...!!

We skirted the huge Bay of Saleh and then turned away from the coast and the silhouette of Tembara Volcano in the distance, and headed east towards Dompu…

I had been riding on reserve for about 80 kms, when with an apologetic burp, the Big Fella called it quits…!!

I hopped off the bike, chastising him gently for not getting us to Dompu which was just a few kilometrs away, and was rewarded with the usual sullen reply…

“I’ve done 430 km on this tank, Buster, and I ain’t going any further…!! And for heaven’s sake find us some tar, I’m sick of all this dust…!!”

Sensing rebellion in the offing, I quickly refueled and got going again, stopping a few minutes later in Dompu and taking on a full tank, tackled the last leg of the ride to Bima…

It was now late afternoon, shadows falling across the road and obscuring many of the potholes that lay in wait for the unwary and reckless…

On a long, flat stretch of gravel, I picked up speed and in the shadows of a large tree, hit a big pothole that I was sure had dented the front rim…!! I slowed down and checked both panniers to see that I had not had a repeat of the “Laos Incident”, and seeing them both where I was used to seeing them, slowed to a stop to check for other damage…

I got off the bike to check, my heart in my mouth and elbows complaining about the jolt they had just received… Seeing that there was no damage to the front tyre or its rim, I rode on with a little more circumspection…!!

Seaside resort - Sumbawa style...!! The pool on the right will be completed soon... Please be patient...!!

And then a small rockfall delayed us even further... I wasn't quite sure if they were clearing it or trying to make it worse than it already was...!!

Covered in dust and waiting patiently... I used the time to check the Big Fella more thoroughly for any damage that I might have overlooked earlier...

Up on the final range of mountains before the last run down to Bima, the road had been blocked by a rockslide, and two excavators were clearing a path for the long line of vehicles to pass…

We stood waiting as the shadows lengthened even further…

By now I was “bone-tired”… I had been on this infernal road for more than seven hours and had covered only 170 kms…!!

With the road cleared, we crested the final set of ridges and there in the valley far below, I picked out a few lights of what I hoped was Bima… In fact, I’m pretty sure I muttered “Please be Bima…!! Please be Bima…!!”, half a dozen times on the way down from the mountains…!!

Dusk settles over the Bay of Saleh... It was such a pretty sight that despite the late hour, I stopped to gaze at it for a few minutes...

It took another hour before I arrived at the water’s edge in the bay, and then on a smooth tarred surface, made my way around the bay and into the centre of the darkened town…

It was 7.00pm…!! It had taken exactly nine hours to ride from the sun-drenched harbour of Poto Tano, to the moonlit town of Bima…

As my luck would have it, the first two hotels I tried were full, or perhaps the receptionists manning the front desks were too scared to offer the dust-covered, grim-faced spectacle before them, a room… The third hotel I tried had one remaining “regular room” on the third floor…!!

“Beee-oootiful…!!” I exclaimed, “Three flights of stairs to round my day off perfectly…!! Are you sure you don’t have something higher up…?” I asked…

“No Boss, we only have the three floors…!!”, he answered with a straight face…

Although the room was far from comfortable, and the bathroom one of those “sit on the toilet and shower at the same time” affairs; had no windows, which made it feel as if I was slowly being baked; it did have excellent parking underground and a security set-up, including CCTV cameras, that made me more than comfortable to leave the Big Fella there…

Feeling a little punch-drunk after a cold shower and a plate of chicken and rice from the Warung across the street, I retired to bed to study the back of my eyelids more closely…

It had been a helluva ride and almost forty hours since last I had slept… But it was all behind me now, and I was fairly “stoked” that I had made it to Bima… There’s nothing like taking too big a bite at something, and then being able to chew it without choking…!!

It had been a VERY BIG DAY...!! Conquering Sumbawa on my "Long Haul to Bima"...!! I had left Ubud in Bali 21 hours earlier, at 10.00 pm the previous evening, arriving in Bima at 7.00 pm...!!

I flicked the light switch in my room, and “Muhammed Ali-like”, was asleep before the filaments in the bulb overhead, blinked out…

 ©GBWT 2011