Wae Rebo

Wae Rebo is a village of seven conical houses in a high green basin of western Flores, in the Manggarai Regency of East Nusa Tenggara, at about 1,200 metres above the sea. The houses, called mbaru niang, stand in a ring around an open central ground, and their tall cone-shaped roofs of lontar-palm thatch reach almost to the ground. Ringed by forested mountains and often wrapped in cloud, the village appears suddenly at the end of the trail, which is a large part of its spell.

Each mbaru niang is a vertical world of five levels. The ground floor is home to the families, six per house, with eight in the main house, Niang Gendang, so that the village holds 44 households in all. Above it are lofts for food and goods, for seed, and for reserves kept against hard times, and at the very top, under the peak of the roof, a space reserved for offerings to the ancestors. Local tradition traces the community back to an ancestor named Empo Maro, who is said to have come from Sumatra; the present houses date from around 1920, when the village was re-inhabited after a period of abandonment.

In 2012 the village received a UNESCO Asia-Pacific Award for Cultural Heritage Conservation. Life here still runs on coffee: the altitude suits both arabica and robusta, which are the main cash crop. Visitors are received with a welcoming ritual, Wailu'u, before entering the village, and in November the annual Penti ceremony brings the traditional caci dances.

Getting there

Wae Rebo is about 26 km in a straight line from Ruteng, the main town of Manggarai. The nearest airport by distance, Sultan Muhammad Salahuddin at Bima (BMU), about 178 km away, is on the neighbouring island of Sumbawa and not practical; most travellers fly into Komodo International Airport at Labuan Bajo (LBJ) and drive east through Ruteng to the village of Denge, at the foot of the trail. From there the walk climbs about 4.5 km through forest to the village and takes around two and a half to three hours.