Day 148 Bajawa

Banana pancake, melon and coffee for breakfast has become the standard. The guide collected us at 8am in the Bemo, first stop was a short stroll through a small bamboo forest. We have seen plenty of bamboo, this was nothing special but nice big tall stuff. The first village Leba was home to 84 people and Alfonso our guide gave us the run down on the social structure. Within each village there may be several clans and the head male and head female each have a symbol in the centre courtyard. The male, a totem pole structure with thatched roof and the female  placed opposite is like a miniature house. The pole of the male's was dark with blood from animal sacrifices. when these totem poles are being built they dig a 2 meter hole first and place in live chickens, pigs and dogs as sacrifices and then fill it up
Many of the houses had either a miniature house or a figurine holding a spare/knife on the roof to symbolise whether the male or female is in charge of the house.
The second village was a little bigger and was obvious more tourists visited since many women had Ikat they had woven for sale. This village was called Bena and it had a large stone where sacrifices like buffalo are made, Rachel & I both thought it looked much like the stone table where Azlan was killed in The Lion the Witch & the Wardrobe.
The third village was Wogo it was a bit smaller and much to our disappointment had power so most were inside watching tv. Rachel loved the cute puppies there.
For lunch we ate with our guide in a local Warung the typical rice, a piece of chicken an egg, spinach and a Thai yellow curry type sauce they all seem to serve.
After lunch we drove for 30mins to hot springs which were very nice. Bajawa is 1100mts up so cool at night and maybe 20 during the day, the springs were down at 800mts. Hot water about 40deg flowed from the ground in to a natural pool area then over a small waterfall in to the river which was also warm but not quite as hot. We spent a couple of hours there soaking and enjoying the strong current and slippery rocks which made a slide.