Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Later, as I hiked Rinca's grassy uplands, I continued to be a bit nervous,
since the dragons have been known to eat villagers and the occasional tourist.
But the thriving dragon population has adjusted to tourism, and the guides
have learned that the lizards can be pushed around with forked sticks, like
living pucks in a game of shul eboard.
The dragons are relict populations of much more numerous (and much
larger) dragons in the past that used to swarm over the Lesser Sundas east
of Wallace's Line. The fi rst hominans who ventured along this island chain
found themselves up to their necks in dragons.
Flores, to the east of Rinca, is a large and mountainous island with more
abundant rainfall and thriving crops of rice, spices, cof ee, and tea. It is domi-
nated by several active volcanoes. In 1992 a severe earthquake and tidal wave
destroyed the village of Maumere on the island's north coast, killing almost
2,000 people.
You will recall from Chapter 3 that the animals and plants that live on the
Lesser Sunda Islands have been shaped by the collision of two great prov-
inces of the living world. The most obvious result of this collision has been
Wallace's Line, 500 kilometers west of Flores, which separates the Southeast
Asian from the Australasian fl ora and fauna.
The humans who currently live on the Lesser Sunda chain have also been
infl uenced by the collision of geography and history. The island of Bali has
retained its early Hindu culture, because of its success at repelling invaders.
The islands from Lombok to Sumbawa are all converts to Islam, because of
the infl uence of traders and conquerors from Mogul India. Flores is largely
Christian, infl uenced by the early arrival of Catholic missionaries from Por-
tugal, though western Flores is now becoming more Muslim because of
immigration from elsewhere in Indonesia.
These dif erent populations show dramatic cultural dif erences. Bali is
famous for its charming Hindu festivals and for ceremonies interwoven with
everyday life. On Sumbawa life is a great deal less happy-go-lucky. A local
Figure 129
(
overleaf
) Approximately a million years ago, when the fi rst hominans arrived
in this part of the world, these mangrove-rimmed islands that lie to the west of Flores in Indo-
nesia were linked together by dry land bridges.
