Bzzzzz, Ge-cko Ge-cko, Meow, tsjirp tsjirp. Ouhh what’s that sound? Over the last week and a half we have had our fair share of encounters with exotic animals. On this island you never know what you can expect around the next corner, or under your bed, or behind the paintings on the wall …

It all started on the first day when we arrived on Bali. Laying on the bed after a long and exhausting day of travelling to Indonesia, the last thing you want is to share the night with an enormous gecko in the room. In my opinion, one thing even more scary than a reptile in your room is not knowing where it went. Sadly enough this was the case, because when finally the man from the reception came to our rescue, the gecko was gone …

One and a half weeks later, we are still not quite used to meeting wild animals. In our attempt to be more adventurous we left our safe zone: Ella hotel, to take a break from our project and experience nature. Looking like a paradise at first, it started to turn into a small nightmare as the night progressed. Starting of, almost the same thing happened as in Bali. While relaxing on the bed, suddenly we saw the head of a beast behind the painting on the wall. Josine ran outside, screaming for help: “Mister Djaya, come safe us!”. After escorting the gecko outside, we went for dinner at the hotel. We did not have a lot of time to recover from our adventurous encounter of before, when two geckos were awaiting our arrival at the front door. After conquering this obstacle and being laughed at by the staff, we tried to have a good nights’ sleep, which was definitely not easy with an army of bugs marching in and around the bed. After this experience, the following morning we decided we do not have the adventurous genes after all.

Bzzzz from Sumba!

Written by: Anaïs Lensen