Ternate City Tour

July 22nd, 2010

Today I got my first Liberty Pass. You cannot go ashore with out being approved for liberty. Even if you have the day off you cannot leave the ship unless on this list. The process to obtain liberty is not unlike asking both mom, dad, grandpa and grandma and the neighbor for permission to get off. There are rules and curfews and other hurdles that I managed to surpass and was free for a day on the town. We had to travel in groups of at least 3 buddies for our safety and I am all about keeping those rules. I got to ride in my first open aired Band-aid boat across the sea to the shore and love feeling the sea air on my face and seeing all the sights. There were a mixtures of modern boats and old boats I was sure would sink by the looks of the, but still were going strong. From there we got on buses for a tour that I had signed up for. I loved driving through the city and seeing all the sights and people - I was fascinated by the scene. Houses – colorful fancy ones next to small humble ones. One thing that they had in common were the colors. Painted in bright hues of greens, oranges, yellows, blues and purples which gave life to the city around them. It reminded me of Miami. The homes would have laundry hanging and sheets laid out in the yards with cloves drying. Ternate is one of the “Spice Islands” and harvesting and selling cloves is one of their main industries along with farming, being a public servant or a businessman. The families would put out plastic or sheets weighed down with rocks and then scatter cloves all over them. I would see children stirring and turning the cloves over so they would dry evenly. The weather is pretty steady here all year long – hot around 85-90 all year – perfect drying weather for cloves. We passed schools with children all playing and laughing all dressed alike in floral tops and tan pants. I love to see the children. I believe children are universally innocent and pure – they would eagerly wave to us as we traveled by.
 

Also dotted along the streets were many small merchants selling mostly food and then I noticed a lot of venders with bottles of an amber liquid in small stands almost every block someone was selling this liquid. I asked Rusli, our Indonesian tour guide, what drink this was and he laughed. It turned out that the “amber liquid” was gasoline. All of those motorcyles and mo-peds that were everywhere had a “gas station” on every block. They would stop at theses little stands – imagine something like a lemonade stand – and buy a bottle of gasoline to put in their tanks. Rusli said that people would just go to the main gasoline station in town and fill up their empty water bottles with gasoline so they would have it to sell on the streets. Very interesting!