Wednesday, November 24, 2010

weekend in Baucau

Kadalak press, Had a chance to get out of Dili last weekend and visit the second largest city in Timor-Leste. Compared to Dili, Baucau is a sleepy town about 120km east of the capital city. From what we saw, there isn’t much going on in the town, so you can guess how it is in even smaller towns in the country. Having a car helps in this country, and just a few kms drive outside of Dili can be breathtaking.
Lucky for us there was a basketball tournament the weekend we were there so we had a chance to see teams from all over the country come to play. Aside from this special occasion, Baucau is known to tourists and expats from Dili as the place to go for the weekend.
The main attraction is the 10-room Pousada de Baucau, an all-pink guesthouse/hotel that is clean, has good service, and is a nice change from most of the dilapidated guesthouses and hotels in Dili. If there were more of these in other parts of the country (there could be, I haven’t been everywhere yet), it would definitely draw visitors and inject the local community with some income.
The definite highlight of the weekend was taking a short drive down to the beach. Around 5km north of the Pousada, down a long and steep road, we arrived at a fishing village with some of the bluest waters I’ve seen in a while. After a brief chat with a very friendly old man that was living on the beach, we went to a beach he recommended… even though there was a sign for crocodiles, we took a dip and lapped-up the scenery and tranquility of being in a small unknown corner of the world. Kadalak001

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