The Flores Grand Overland

Hour by hour

The itinerary

1. Day 1

   Into the Manggarai highlands

   You leave Labuan Bajo after breakfast and the road starts climbing almost at once. First stop, if you want to stretch your legs: Cunca Wulang, a canyon and waterfall reached by a forty-five-minute walk through forest. By early afternoon you are at Cancar, where a short climb up a hillside brings you to the view the Manggarai call lingko — rice fields divided like spider webs, each wedge belonging to one family. On to Ruteng for the night. It sits high enough that you will want a jumper at dinner.

2. Day 2

   The Trans-Flores road to Bajawa

   This is the longest driving day, and the reason you came by road. The Trans-Flores winds east through highland villages and bamboo groves, dropping towards the coast and climbing back again. You stop when something is worth stopping for — a market, an overlook, lunch wherever your guide rates the cooking. By mid-afternoon the cone of Inerie volcano appears, and beneath it Bena: a megalithic village of thatched houses and standing stones on a ridge, home to the same clans for generations. You walk it slowly with a local guide, then drive the last stretch into Bajawa for the night.

3. Day 3

   Riung's seventeen islands

   An early start north, downhill most of the way, from Bajawa's cool morning air to the flat heat of the coast. At Riung a private local boat is waiting, and you spend the day among the marine park's seventeen islands: white-sand islets, snorkelling over shallow reef, a picnic lunch on board. It is far quieter than Komodo — most days you share the water with fishermen and nobody else. You are back on land by late afternoon and sleep in Riung, in a simple guesthouse — the best the town offers, at any tier — with the sea a few steps away.

4. Day 4

   East through Ende, up to the crater

   Back over the hills and east towards Ende, the largest town on this stretch of coast. It earns a short stop — a market, fuel, perhaps lunch by the sea — before the road turns inland and starts to climb again. The last hour is the best of it: the valley narrows, the air cools, and you arrive in the small village at the foot of Kelimutu with the afternoon light on the ridges. Dinner is early and so is bed. Tomorrow starts at four, and it is the reason the whole route points east.

5. Day 5

   Kelimutu at sunrise, then down to Maumere

   A 04:00 alarm, a short drive up in the dark, and an easy walk to the summit viewpoint. Then you wait. As the light comes up, the three crater lakes appear below you, each a different colour — one turquoise against a sheer crater wall, the others darker, and none of them the same shade twice. The colours shift over the years with the minerals in the water; locals read meaning into every change. You are down for a late breakfast, then follow the road to Maumere for your last night, back at sea level.

6. Day 6

   Maumere fly-out

   A slow morning. Swim, pack, have a second coffee — the hard driving is done. Your guide takes you to Maumere's airport for the flight out, and somewhere over the island you can trace the week from the window: the ridge road, the volcano, the crater you stood on yesterday. If your plans continue to Komodo, we run this route in reverse just as easily, ending in Labuan Bajo with your boat waiting. Either way, six days by road show you a Flores that day-trippers from the harbour never see.