A dragon, a dragon, I finally saw a dragon
For the last several seasons timing has not been on my side when we called at Komodo Island, so until now I’ve never seen the resident reptiles. For once though, circumstance worked in my favour today.
No one is allowed on the island without a resident guide and at least one park ranger, which means that no one is allowed ashore without having booked a shore excursion. There’s no way anyone goes wondering on that island alone. Ever. It’s a safety thing, not a profit one – the last thing anyone wants is for someone to get hurt. And out in this heat, it’s not just the dragons that are dangerous, I was far more worried about heat stroke than I truly was about the dragons.
Tendering over to the island felt like travelling to King Kong’s island, or back in time to the dinosaurs. It looked, like something not quite of this world…
Which is also a good way to describe the dragons themselves.
Thankfully it was the heat of the day so they were all sleeping. We were allowed to take pictures of them, or even with them, but only under the watchful eye of the guides and wranglers who told us exactly how to walk, where to step, where to stand and essentially when to breathe. The picture I have that looks as though I was practically standing on the beast’s tail, was actually taken when I was standing a good 5 meters or more behind it, safely out of harm’s way; and I had walked very carefully and very slowly behind and out of its line of vision.
They’re still horrid beasts, but oddly beautiful in their own strange way. They move like geckos, if a gecko was the size of a small pony; and they smell with their tongues. At some point I almost did expect them to start breathing fire. They can run extremely fast and bite extremely hard, and if they do bite you, well…let’s just say it’s not good. And what was protecting us from them? Two park ranger wranglers with long poles…
Yup, one of the deadliest reptiles in the world, and we’re being protected by someone with a stick…
Yipes!
As we made our way through the sweltering brush (which reminded me a lot of the old park behind my house, if that park had been what felt like about 100 degrees hotter in the shade than normal) – we spotted the occasional bird, at least one nest of wild hornets (thankfully very far up in a tree) and a few deer…but mostly we saw dragons.
Six dragons in total, which apparently is unusual, as they are not normally out in much numbers at the peak of the day. The guest tours that went out before us only saw two…but the island presented us with six. Three near the beginning and three lounging and lumbering around a small muddy watering hole. One of which showed an intense curiosity in a hanging backpack one of the guides must have left by a tree. That’s a good thing, it meant that it was showing no interest at all in us.
I find it hard to wrap my head around the knowledge that there are people that live on this island; with these creatures – day in and day out, all year. I can only think that they must have developed some kind of balance with the beasts…otherwise, well, do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
The island itself is an eerie kind of place. It’s too still. While there is a great deal of wildlife there, it seems that it is all silence except for the occasional bird. The air is humid and thick, and within only a few moments of leaving the tender your clothes are sticking to you and you can feel the perspiration sliding off your neck. And yet despite the heat, the ground is hard-parched and thirsty, as though none of the choking moisture from the air ever manages to reach it.