Once again up early in the morning, this time at 4:30am. There is not that much to do in Tangkoko after the sun is down anyways, so going early to sleep is an easy thing. The morning tour starts at 5:00am at the gate of the park. Our ranger was already there waiting for us and ready to take us on another trekking. This time we are out to follow black macaques and catch them coming down the trees, walking all together to the beach. Also, a good trekking to see some of the hornbills and exotic birds that live in the region. After a good sweaty walk, we were taken to the beach to freshen up a bit. The beach is volcanic and the black sand gives it an exotic touch.
Once we had breakfast in our homestay we had planned to spend some days diving in Lembeh. We took the pick-up to Bitung and a microlet to the pier. We bought a sim-card and called several of the dive places after being a bit harassed by the local captains. We were caught by surprise to know that the hotels were either fully booked or quite expensive, so at the end we decided to passed on Lembeh and head back to Manado. The microlet that supposedly was taking us to the bus station in Bitung played the language barrier card and for one second almost head straight to Manado without consulting us. Luckily we redirect this on time and were able to catch the bus. Not that is a more comfortable option, but certainly a much cheaper one. We checked in at Minahasa Hotel, it has a pool and is pretty decent. Manado is not a tourist attraction by itself but there is some shopping and some nice restaurant/bars on the back of Mega Mall. We took advantage of the time in Manado to arranged our way to Flores. B & B Travel Agency, located in front of Mega Mall, was pretty good and efficient for this. Our first choice was to fly from Manado to Makassar and then take a ferry to Labuan Bajo. Unfortunately the ferry schedule didn't work for us and we decided to fly to Maumere the morning after arriving to Makassar.
Price Reference:
Tangkoko Park Ticket: 200K IDR
Minahasa Hotel: 235K IDR including breakfast
Lion Air. Manado-Makassar: 325K IDR
Merpati. Makassar-Maumere: 175K IDR
