Since I didn't sleep too much last night I was able to get up early and enjoy the sunrise and I got to see the flying foxes return from their night out.  I felt so blessed for just being there and witnessing the wonders of nature.  This was truly one of those moments I will never forget.  Before we headed to Komodo I enjoyed a delicious breakfast of banana pancakes and banana fritters.



After breakfast it was about 1 hour to Komodo National Park.



I took another 1 hour trek with a park ranger who happened to be a young teenage boy.  He showed me all kinds of plants.  I found a particular type of palm tree to be very interesting.  I only lives for 3 months, produces fruit, drops the fruit, then dies, and falls over.  That is its entire lifecycle.



You can see the whole it leaves behind when it falls.  The roots are very small on this tree.  After trekking about 10 minutes we came across this female resting.



I was told that they are very lazy animals unless you get too close and then they become very aggressive or if they are hungry.  Here is a close-up of her face.  She must like getting her picture taken because as I moved around her she kept looking right at me, but only when I was taking a picture.



We also spotted this deer along the way.



The poor thing lost one of its antlers, but I was told they shed them once a year.  Still I didn't like seeing the poor thing all bloody from losing it.  I showed you a friendlier picture of the deer.  By the way this would be a perfect meal for a dragon.  They will bite their prey in the rear and then let it go.  They will let the poison do its work and they will follow the blood trail later to find the dead animal to eat.  Here is what dragon poop looks like.



It is white from the calcium in the bones of the animals they eat.  The dragons can't fully digest bone, but they eat animals whole.  So they poop out white because they are getting rid of the undigested bone material (calcium).  You also see hair balls in their poop too.  Hair can't really be digested either.  After the trek I was taken to the kitchen of the rangers village again and there was 2 male dragons laying around.  Just as I was about to leave one of the dragons got up and started walking straight towards me.  My ranger jumped in front of me just in case, but the dragon went and laid down next to the other dragon.  Apparently the other dragon didn't like that becasue it got up and started breathing real heavy.  It sounded like someone was turning a leaf blower on and off.  I got a great video of this.  It was soooooooooo cool to witness.  Eventually the other dragon laid back down.  The ranger told me that the dragons don't really fight because they are too lazy.  What a show it was though.  Here are the 2 dragons.  You can see the one on the back is the dragon that was upset.  See how big it's throat is.  It is filled with air to make the loud noise it was making.



After another great trek in Komodo National Park I headed back to the boat.  We went to another snorkel spot, but I didn't want to snorkel as I didn't feel that great.  I did jump in the water to rinse off though.  After all I hadn't showered in a couple days now.  (Gross I know.)  As soon as I hit the water I couldn't breath.  The water was colder than I expected and my throat was really sore.  So the combination made it hard for me to breath in the water.  Under normal circumstances the water would have been fine.  A lot warmer than San Diego that's for sure.  After my rinse I took a nap for awhile as we headed back to Labuan Bajo on Flores.  Waking from my nap I was served lunch.  It was the usual sweet and sour fish, veggies, etc.  Here is a typical meal on the board.



Here is the fresh sweet and sour fish.



Here is the veggies.



The meals onboard were just outstanding.  Towards the end of the return trip we ran into a little rain.



You can see the haze up ahead.  That means rain.  So we knew it was coming, but we didn't know how bad.  Luckily it was not too bad.  We made it through the rain with no problems and back to Labuan Bajo.



Unfortunately my trip was over and it was too late to fly back to Bali today so I was stuck in Labuan Bajo for another night.  This meant to sleep tonight and no shower again.  I thought I would at least get dinner.  Oh and my throat was the worst it has been so far so I am coughing like crazy.  At that moment I was wishing I was anywhere, but there.  I shoulc have paid the $150 for the fancy hotel, but I couldn't do it.  I figured I would suffer for one more night and be in Bali tomorrow.  Actually I was worried that I wouldn't be able to get a ticket to Bali until the following day trapping me here for an extra day.  Anyways, back to dinner.  I went to get dinner at the hotel thinking the slow service was just from the big party.  However, I quickly learned otherwise.  After sitting for 10 minutes I got up and asked for a menu.  After another 15 waiting I went up to them to order.  Then after 45 mintues of waiting for my food (keep in mind the restaurant is nearly empty and I only ordered scrambled eggs and toast) I got up and told them to cancel my order.  I had already spent over an hour coughing in the cool air all the while getting bitten by mosquitos.  In fact one mosquito bite was so bad that I could feel my toe throbbing.  I finally had enough and didn't want to wait any longer.  I wasn't even all the hungry to begin with.  So I went back to my dirty bungalow and coughed myself to sleep fo maybe an hour before the 4:30am prayer song came balring through the town.  I don't know if I mentioned it but Indonesia is a Muslim country and so towns are rigged with loudspeakers for the daily prayer songs.  You hear the songs go off all day long.  I respect everyone and their beliefs, but I wanted to run around town and cut down all the speakers.  4:30am.  Really?  You need to get up that early to pray?  Is anyone even awake yet?  All I can tell you is that I am glad to back to Bali now.