To and on Mbalata beach

From Moni (oh, one last picture of an amazingly tiny and perfect little gecko I met in my bathroom there)...

...I'd arranged to stay at a beach bungalow place that was a 7-hour drive back in the direction of Labuan Bajo. Very fortuitously, the owner of the bungalows was driving home from taking some guests even farther east on the island, so he offered me a ride in exchange for chipping in with gas and we both won. So it was a very comfortable ride through some amazing scenery and villages of Flores Island. But first, he and my Moni host spent an hour trying to fix the seatbelt of the passenger seat, which clearly hadn't been used in more than a decade and which of course couldn't be fixed, and so we just kind of had to knot my seatbelt into place before taking off.

But once we were underway, it was a lovely way to see more of the island.

We stopped at Blue Stone Beach, which had, as billed, lots and lots of blue stones. Also, unfortunately, lots and lots of trash.

Still, in five minutes on the beach I found more multi-colored stones that I could comfortably carry, and certainly more than I was going to be able to take away with me, so I had to content myself with a picture of them.

After a long but lovely day of driving, we reached our destination: Mbalata Beach, on the south coast of Flores.

I stayed for three nights in this great bungalow, the only guest on the property.

Which is exactly what I'd been hoping for--some real solitude and a beach all to myself for multiple daily beach walks. So of COURSE, 300 teenage boys from a local boarding school showed up my first morning there to spend the weekend on the beach swimming and playing soccer. They were very sweet and enthusiastic....

...but since they swarmed me every time I went down to the sand, I had to spend a little more time in my bungalow than I'd planned. It was kind of fun for awhile, though, watching them frolic and enjoy the place so thoroughly.

And there were, other, small beauties to appreciate.

The morning I left, I got to take a very quiet, solitary walk up and down the beach, just as I'd hoped, and that was lovely. And then it was time to catch a ride to my next stop....