Komodo Island National Park,
Dropping anchor, we tendered to the jetty and met our guide to hike into the park in search of the famous Varanus Komodoensis, the man-eating giant monitor lizard, over 10 feet long and weighing 200 pounds. While it can kill and devour a buffalo or deer, just the deadly bacteria in its saliva from a bite will kill within 24 hours. Protected by only long sticks of our guides, we soon found that these creatures, appearing to be crocodile-like in appearance, lazed near a water-hole in the heat of the day and certainly would have lulled us into a false sense of security until it could run us down and then eating us whole, perhaps leaving only a hat or shoe of evidence of our being there.
Returning to our ship, we then cruised towards Bali, made famous in ‘South Pacific’, as an idyllic paradise in the 17,000 islands of Indonesia.
Dropping anchor, we tendered to the jetty and met our guide to hike into the park in search of the famous Varanus Komodoensis, the man-eating giant monitor lizard, over 10 feet long and weighing 200 pounds. While it can kill and devour a buffalo or deer, just the deadly bacteria in its saliva from a bite will kill within 24 hours. Protected by only long sticks of our guides, we soon found that these creatures, appearing to be crocodile-like in appearance, lazed near a water-hole in the heat of the day and certainly would have lulled us into a false sense of security until it could run us down and then eating us whole, perhaps leaving only a hat or shoe of evidence of our being there.
Returning to our ship, we then cruised towards Bali, made famous in ‘South Pacific’, as an idyllic paradise in the 17,000 islands of Indonesia.