Timor-Leste Vacay: Atauro Island
First, to close out that cliff-hanger from my last email: Our driver dropped us at the Indonesia-Timor-Leste land border, the travel gods smiled down on us and we walked through and got visas-on-arrival no problem (no one in any government knows anything?!), and caught a bus from there to Dili. The whole transportation experience cost $75, which is too much, but also totally fine.
Timor-Leste is the most “off the beaten path” (sorry, I hate that phrase) country we’ve been to on this trip. It’s one of the least-visited countries in the world — in part because it’s tiny (a smidge larger than Connecticut) and far from everything (we’re so close to northern Australia right now!), in part because the infrastructure is limited, and in (most) part because it’s experienced literally decades of armed conflict and civil unrest. My knowledge of Timor-Leste history comes from vague grad school memories of conflict resolution/negotiation case studies and a 2017 podcast I listened to on the way here.
The country was colonized by Portugal from the 1500s until 1975 (the official language is still Portuguese—Bom dia! Obrigada!—the local language has a lot of Portuguese mixed in, and it is majority Catholic). Just nine days after Timor-Leste gained independence from Portugal, Indonesia invaded and occupied the territory until 1999, despite continuous resistance from the Timorese. This was a Very Bad Time. Economic and infrastructure development basically stopped, Indonesian occupiers killed, starved, and imprisoned Timorese in concentration camps, and conflict-related fatality estimates range from 100,000 to 300,000.
In 1999, the UN supervised a referendum, in which the Timorese voted for independence. In response, Indonesian-aligned forces destroyed ~75% of the country’s already-limited infrastructure and killed over 3,000 people (though now the two countries have good relations). After a UN-overseen transitional government, Timor-Leste finally became its own country in 2002.
When you arrive, it is immediately apparent that this is a less developed country than Indonesia. The capital city of Dili feels more like a town, the hotel options are either really fancy (frequented by foreign aid workers and businesses — the “Land Rover aristocracy” in the words of an old Lonely Planet) or almost nothing at all, and the roads and sidewalks are in a much worse state of disrepair than we’ve seen in a while.
Our plan for our Timor-Leste time (fun fact #1: “timor” is derived from the Malay word for “east,” so the country’s name is literally East-East!) was to spend it mostly on Atauro Island (fun fact #2: “atauro” means “goat” in the local language!).
Getting to Atauro was trickier than one would hope. We could arrange a private boat for $60 per person (!!), OR take a local boat for $10. Obviously we opted for the latter. We showed up at the port in Dili, where a few men waved us toward a little red boat. We waded waist-deep into the surf, handed them our bags, and crawled into the hold amidst boxes of frozen chicken and juice and who knows what else, and we were off!
There is a very deep channel between Timor and Atauro—the Wetar and Ombai Straits connect the Pacific to the Indian Ocean and are up to 10,000 feet deep!—and the sea is ROUGH. A wiry man—aged somewhere between 20 and 45–sat in between us on the wooden bench, slamming the windows closed (yes, just inches above the sea this boat had windows) when the waves dipped too violently, and furiously scooping out excess water with a top-cut-off plastic jug and tossing it out the window next to me between the dips. The ride took three hours, and honestly I spent most of it convinced we were going to die (I love you all!).
After the truly terrifying channel we motored our way up the coast of Atauro, eventually stopping at the most beautiful long-white-sand-backed-by-palm-trees-and-mountains beach ever. A classic Remote Tropical Island if I have ever seen one.
We waded from the boat to the beach in bathtub-warm water, paid the captain, and were on our way walking two miles up the beach to Atauro Dive Resort. You know you’re not in touristland anymore when your arrival is met with indifference and no one tries to give you a ride.
The next day we hiked a beautiful eight miles north to Akrema, the best beach on the island. Continuing with the deserted island vibes, we only met one man in Akrema, who offered to climb a tree to cut us down a couple coconuts. Yes please! Usually I’m not a big fan of coconut milk/water (I know I know, but it has a weird icky sour taste!), but these were the biggest sweetest best coconuts ever. That gave us the necessary fuel for our eight-mile return hike — we had hoped to take a boat back, but our coconut friend informed us that it was too windy for boats to go.
Another day we hiked five miles south (really we just totally covered the east coast of the island), to a tiny town only accessible by boat and hiking trail, where a guy was blasting a Timorese flute cover of Despacito. Globalization is so weird.
Though we spent four days at a beachfront dive resort, we continue to not dive…but we do snorkel! The waters around Atauro are supposedly the most biodiverse in the world,1 including being a “cetacean migration highway” where during migration seasons, thousands of whales and dolphins pass by day. In a win for conservation, local communities have agreed on what in Timorese traditional law are called taru bandu, or “no-take” zones, to protect their reefs and ensure the sustainability of diving tourism. We took a boat out one day to the famous reef, and then also just snorkeled straight from the beach. You guys we saw AMAZING coral and so many fishies!
Oh also, we splurged for the private boat back. :)
In 2016 a Conservation International team found more species of reef fish per site in the waters surrounding Atauro than anywhere else in the world.
love all the info about where you have been.