Tag Archives: timor plaza

Day 86 – Goodbye Dili

The last day of comfort in Herman’s Dili abode has come, it is finally time to move on and get on the road. Plus, there was some recovering to do from the long hike and strenuous ride back.

We spend an awful long time with the last two blog posts today. Our mobile data has run out and we did not want to buy another data package for our last days in Timor, so we went to Timor Plaza after lunch and used the free wifi there. Free unfortunately also means slow and unreliable, so all in all, it took us two hours to get the two post up online.

Nina and Joris

Porch night with the VSA volunteers & other New Zealanders

After a brief debate whether to move on late today for a short day or sleep one more night yesterday, we settled on staying and leaving the next morning. The main reason was that this gave us a chance to meet the New Zealand volunteers we have met over the last two and a half weeks one more time.

We had a great night again. A special thanks to Joris for his inside food tips and, of course, Herman for all he has done for us. He gave us a base, was our guide, driver and at times cook. Thank you, you are a big part of the reason why we will remember Dili fondly.

Day 79 – Liberation day!

Finally, after 25 days of waiting, cursing and hoping, Rocinante is free. As of 10:30 today, she is officially back on the (East Timorese) road! Too long. Never again container shipping!

Am i in the way?

Am i in the way?

It took us a bit to decide what we were to do now. Go now? Take our time and leave tomorrow morning? In the end, we decided for the more relaxed version. After nearly 3 weeks without the bike and our gear all over the place, packing took a bit of time.

Around 2ish, we were mostly done. We needed to stock up on a couple of things and, of course, get more fuel than what was left in the tank after shipping. Heading out to refill our tyres with air was a little adventure in itself. Flo had seen a tiny shop that had air. Stopping there, we caused a little uproar. People are not used to such big bikes and would stop on the street, just to look at us. The shop owners on the other hand were delighted that we came to them and asked all sorts of questions. The most popular ones seem to be “how big is the engine?” and “where do you come from?”. We left with much waving and headed for the backpackers to say

good bye to the travellers we met there. Hubert and Alex were still cleaning their bikes for the shipping and were easily spotted. Marten and Reed said hi as well while we were parked in the yard.

A last shopping stop at Timor Plaza with more questions later, we were done. Smaller chores still had to be done and Flo hopped back on the bike to organize dinner and get our flash drives back which we had lend to Joris.

In the evening, we watched “No” with Gael García Bernal, which felt oddly right in Timor-Leste.