Experiencing weightlessness in a coastal salt cave
With just a few days left of our escape to island paradise, we knew that we wanted to fit in one more great adventure before we had to head back home. A literal island paradise, one of the best parts about East Nusa Tenggara is that this is a place where the island lifestyle is evident all the time. The other side of the coin, however, is that sometimes you have to go out of your way to explore and find something new to do (that is, if you are not wanting to do the same thing every day - and there is nothing wrong with that of course). We had seen the Komodo dragons and the national park, we had gone out to snorkel a few times, and we had scootered just about everywhere we possibly could on the island. So, what to do for our last little adventure on this trip? How do we perfectly cap of these ten days in this tropical Indonesian paradise?
Ultimately, we decided to go back to a little spot that we had actually found by accident on the island by a little coastal town...the village that runs boats out to the coastal salt caves! We had heard about the caves very briefly from locals etc however we had no idea how to find them and quite honestly not many people seemed to know themselves. Then, one day when scootering down around some little villages, a local rode up next to us and asked us if we were looking for something fun to do. A little bit of navigating the language barrier later, we followed him to what ended up being his family's home in the village - right next to a sign about the Rangko cave. That particular day, we just wanted to scooter around and had found ourselves there without ever really meaning to be. We thanked him and rode off to enjoy the rest of our afternoon - but we kept the village in mind.
'In a Wonderland they lie, Dreaming as the days go by, Dreaming as the summers die:
Ever drifting down the stream- Lingering in the golden gleam - Life, what is it but a dream?'
- Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
Riding back out to this village, we knew that this was very much a plan in motion that might not necessarily work out - but hey, that is all part of the fun when travelling, right? Serendipitous adventures and experiences can be and often are the best of them! And this day definitely was one of those serendipitous experiences. When we found the sign, we turned down the little path we had taken earlier in the week by accident (this time on purpose) and found the family again. We parked the scooter, paid a small fee to get the gentleman to take us there in his awesome boat, and off we went! I love these Indonesian boats, simple and sturdy, they are an entirely different experience to the massive, speedy boats that you often find on other islands and destinations around the globe that seem to gain the attention of more tourists than this little place still does (though it really should, to be entirely honest).
The boat ride out to Rangko cave is beautiful. in some parts, the man driving the boat had to slow us down as the water was quite shallow and so we were much closer to the reef than it is in most other spots. The water was crystal clear and tiny fish floated by us as the boat propelled its way through the water out to the cave. When we got there, the gentleman kindly assisted us in climbing out of the boat and up to the pier, told us he would wait for us, and then pointed to where we would pay for admission (again, a small fee) to the cave. We paid and began following the little painted arrows across the sand and then up through the trees to a rocky section along the coastline. We heard a few individuals laughing, saw the tops of a bamboo ladder in the rocky ground, and as we got closer we carefully made our way down the ladder and into Rangko cave.
I cannot stress to you enough that the cave is slippery. If you go here (and - you guessed it - you absolutely should if and when you find yourself on this epic little Indonesian island), please be careful. I nearly slipped climbing the short distance down the ladder. Which would have been painful, because it is all rock down there (as shown in the pictures). Being in the cave is a really cool experience. It is almost humid in there and you have to be super careful with your footing every step of the way because the rocks are quite muddy. Do not let that deter you though. We took of our shoes to make it easier and I recommend doing the same if and when you go here. We navigated our way to a little spot, and got ready to get in the water - myself holding onto the GoPro for dear life. Josh swam around for a bit near the others while I hung out near our bag. Finally, I built up the courage to just do it (no pun intended).
The salty water is luke warm (or, at least, it was when we went in the early afternoon). Tentatively stepping in (and I mean this so literally because there is no ladder in, you just kind of choose a foot hold in the rock and hope you do not slide in), it is kind of crazy to realise that you are literally stepping foot into a cave filled with water. The water is insanely clear and when you just stay in one spot you float with no effort on your part at all, the insanely high concentration of salt in the water keeps you afloat. We had never experienced this before and found it so entertaining, spending a while laughing while we swam around and tried floating on our stomachs, our backs, our sides, just kind of bobbing in place. It is a pretty surreal and unique feeling. It kind of leaves you a little giddy, how it is even possible at all to just float without making any effort to!
And if all this is not cool enough, when we swam into the part of the cave where the salty rock drops down closer to the surface of the water, that rocky kind of roof soars back up into darkness...and sleeping bats (yes, really). You had to kind of squint at first, and then their dark little bodies started to become more and more obvious the longer that you looked up into the darkness. There were so many of them. Immediately we started to whisper so that we would not disturb them and risk a Van Helsing-style explosion of waking bats unintentionally swarming us (in hindsight, that is unlikely in the afternoon, but still! You never know). The contrast between the bats and the dark heights of the insides of the cave and the weightlessness of the light aqua clarity of the water that has built up in the cave is quite wild and ridiculously cool to experience...just drifting inside the cave, enjoying it all.
We floated around underneath the bats, enjoying having the cave almost to ourselves (with the exception of a group who left not long after we got there and an older gentleman who was there exploring too) and then realised as the light from the one entry point into the cave started to fade off, that we should probably go back to the mainland. After we carefully got out, dried off, and walked back to the boat, we went back on the boat and enjoyed the clear turquoise waters and emerald and sandy coastlines, still riding the natural high of getting to experience Rangko cave for ourselves. This might be one of the lesser known and more challenging to get to experiences on East Nusa Tengarra, however it is definitely also one of the best and most unforgettable of them. We went home from that experience and spent the last few days relaxing. Then, all too quickly, it was time to head back Home, leaving a little piece of our hearts on this special island.
