Ten of the best hikes in Dili

Ten of the best hikes in Dili, capital of Timor-Leste...

Tasi Tolu Lake(s) Loop,4.9km,1.5 hrs,Easy

Uma Lulik,7km,2-3 hrs,Moderate to Hard

Bemos Valley,8km,2-3 hrs,Moderate

Dili Airport,7km,1.5 hrs,Easy

Mt Lebometa Loop,7.7km,2.5 hrs,Moderate

Mt Fatocama Loop,5.9km,2 hrs,Moderate

Cristo Rei Ridge Hike,6.4km,2.5 hrs,Moderate to Hard

Tuda Tiris Waterfall,3km,1.5-2 hrs,Moderate

Above Dare,6.2km,2.5 hrs,Moderate

Bihare to Darlau Hike,10.8km,3 hrs,Moderate to Hard

Exploring Timor-Leste on Foot: 30 incredible hikes in one of the least visited countries in the world - https://www.amazon.com/Exploring-Timor-Leste-Foot-incredible-countries-ebook/dp/B0DNF9VK9Z

Hiking map - https://exploringtimor.com/discover-what-you-can-do-in-timor-leste/#hiking

Website - www.exploringtimor.com

TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@exploringtimor

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@ExploringTimorLeste

Books - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D82D3TBJ

Transcript

Jonty: 0:06

Bondi. Welcome to exploring Tim Este, the podcast that talks about Southeast Asia's best kept travel secret. I'm your host Jte, and I'll share firsthand insights, expert interviews and practical travel tips. Whether you're a traveler, a cultural lover, or just curious about places rarely covered in the mainstream. You're in the right place. Let's explore two more. Less day.

0:31

Today's episode is about day hikes around Dili, the capital city of Timor-Leste. It is a fantastic place to go for a walk. There are lots of different options, lots of hills to climb, lots of nice bits of coastline to walk around, and there's plenty to explore. I spent a year living in Dili and would've done probably 30 or 40 different hiking routes in and around the city, some of which I found through all trails and Wiki Lock, and a number of which I developed myself by looking at a map, just looking on Google Earth and seeing where the ridge lines were and where a path potentially could be. And then headed up into the hills to discover what I could find. So today I am gonna talk to you about 10 of my favorite hikes within Dili. Now for more information, look in the episode notes and you'll find some links there. So on my website, exploring timor.com. There's a section about hiking that has a Google map with all the hikes that I did in Timor Less Day. And you can click on the hike and it gives you photographs and a bit of a description of the hike, and it'll give you a link to, the all trails route map, so you can follow it on GPS, which I would highly recommend as it is very easy to get lost when hiking in Timor-Leste, and particularly some of these hikes in Dili once you're on the hills. It can be relatively straightforward, but getting onto the hills and off the hills from the city can be quite tricky'cause you're effectively going through people's backyards to get up into the hills. I've also written a book, which includes all these hikes and other hikes around Timor Lesse. That's called Exploring Timor Day on Foot. And it's available from Amazon as an ebook or as a print edition. I've already done an episode about hiking across Timor Este, and that included three hikes within Dili, the Horter Loop, Tassy, Tolu Hills, and the Tbar Coastal Walk. So I won't talk about those today, but if you're interested in finding out more, go back to a previous episode for information. So I'll start today by talking about the tased Tolu Lakes loop. This is one of the easiest walks I'm going to describe. It's about five kilometers, takes about an hour and a half. It's flat. And navigationally, it's very straightforward. So if you head out towards Tait Tolu, which is to the west of Central Dili. Get off the Mik number 10, where the Mik ends and there's a monument where Pope John Paul II spoke to the masses in 1989. It was quite a distinctive um, luki style building. From there, you just literally walk inland towards the lake. Now there are three lakes at Tassie Tolu, which is why it's called Tassie tolu.'cause tassie means C and tolu means three. This walk goes around two of them. If you're doing this in the wet season, it may be one lake. There's a bit of a causeway through the middle. When it's the dry season, it splits into two lakes. So you just walk to the lake and then you turn right and follow the lake around the edge. On the lake itself, especially early in the morning, you can get some beautiful reflections. Often quite still. There's quite a lot of bird life to see. As you head further around the lake, there's a lot of houses and settlements many of which were not there, say 10 or 15 years ago. Originally it was a nature reserve and then Tassie to has been a popular place for people moving from the districts in Timor to Dili. To set up houses. A number of those were removed before the Pope visited, but there is still quite an active community and there is a bit of infrastructure. There's some schools, there's some interesting churches. And so you get a real flavor of kind timor's life as you walk around the lake. The next three hikes are all in the Camaro area. So this is named after the Kama River, which is one of the larger river systems within Timor-Leste, I think four municipalities. The water from that flows into the Camaro and it exits out into the sea near the airport, even though the river is dry for most of the year. And it is a popular place for construction companies to pick up aggregate to use in building. So the Karo, the three are described. So the first one in the Karo area is called the Umer Luli hike. And this is a moderate to hard hike. And I'll just caveat, these are all two more levels of difficulty. So it is gonna be hot, it's gonna be humid whenever you do these walks. So in another country, this is probably. Pretty hard. Once you've acclimatized the team, or I'd say it's a moderate to hard, there are harder hikes, but this is quite a tough seven kilometer out and back up a fairly steep hill and then back down again. So you need to allow at least probably two to three hours for this hike. This hike starts from by the Libet Chapel which is one of many chapels in Dili. There is plenty of parking there, and you can catch the number five mic there as well. So it's got accessible public transport, and then from the church, cross the road and you head up a steep, a bit of hill to a cemetery, which is quite atmospheric and offers some nice views around the area. And then basically just keep going up the hill and up the hill and follow the GPS map route and you'll eventually end up at a pair of um, luli. So traditional Timorese sacred houses. If you contact the owners in advance, you can get a bit of a look around inside and understand a bit more about the history of those um, luli. Otherwise you can just have a look at those and then return back down the way you came. The second hike in the Kamora area is the Bemo Valley hike, so this is further along the river. If you're heading up towards Lao, along that road, you can either drive there or you can catch Relet number. 13. If you get off at the end of that route, that's where this starts. So the main Kamo River continues round to your right if you are looking inland. The Bemo value is a tributary to the river and it flows in from the left. And this is quite an interesting river walk. It's relatively easy. It's about an eight kilometer out and back hike. You basically go as far as you can. Safely go. There ends up being some sort of rapids towards the end, which is a good spot to have some food and then come back the way you came. So do expect this to be quite uneven underfoot'cause you are effectively walking on a riverbed. So good ankle support and poles are recommended. If you do this hike in the wet season or soon after the wet season, you are likely to get your feet wet and you'll need to take your boots off or wear sports strands or something to cross the rivers quite a lot of backwards and forwards. If you're doing in the middle of the dry season, then you may be able to keep your feet dry, but that's just something to consider around this hike. It's very quiet, particularly given how close you are to dili. This is a very quiet valley and peaceful place to spend some time. The last hike in the Karu area is out by the coast, and this is an easy walk. So this is around Dili airport, which is probably one of the more scenic located airports that I've visited as it is pretty much on the sea. And there's an attractive beach which you can walk along. So if you start from the main road by the airport. Which is easily accessible by public transport. You basically walk along by the Kama River out to the mouth of the Kama River. And that's quite interesting because there's generally water there all year round. There's quite a lot of bird life. There's some reeds. It's quite a green and lush area, and there's a small community. Which even though it's very central dili, it feels more like you're out in the districts. Like you have a sense of being in a more kind of rural Timorese community. It has an attractive cemetery. And as I say, that's. Next to Beto Beach which is a beautiful beach to walk along, that will take you to the end of the airport and then you can tuck back in onto the main road and catch a Mik collet home. So you can, if you are gonna park somewhere, you could do it as a loop, but it's also quite easily done as a public transport in a U shape. Now hike number five is the Mount Leon Meta loop. This is a personal favorite of mine. It's not overly challenging, but it offers a lot of variety within a eight k walk and it's very scenic and it's very easy to do logistically. It starts from Santa Cruz Cemetery, which is one of the best known and largest cemeteries in the country. And very quickly you get up into the bush. So you head up a steep set of steps, and then you're in the bush. It's very quiet and peaceful. You walk around the large walls of a new Catholic complex, which is under construction, which judging by the pictures will look pretty amazing once it's finished with accommodation and gardens and various things to visit. And then you head up towards Dre way into the bush and then you drop back down a river system interesting kind of houses and things to explore and then return back to where you started. So it's a nice loop. It's relatively straightforward. You do need to follow the GPS routing'cause you may get lost, but it does offer some really good views for a very central hike in Dili. Hike number six is the mount fatal karma loop, which is one value over from the Mount Leo meta loop. So this one starts from where the Mik number seven route starts or ends. And you can also drive out to there. And you basically park on a dry riverbed. And this is, again, is a loop that heads up into the hills, offers some beautiful views around dilly. There's an interesting chapel to visit and you walk through some communities you get a good amount of variety. It's not overly challenging, but it's just a great way to spend a morning in the hills. The next hike is the Christo Ray Ridge hike. Christo Ray is the most prominent landmark within Dili, and this starts effectively opposite Crito Ray. So when you head up the staircase towards Christo Ray, you'll reach a point where the steps finish and there's a bit of a courtyard area on the left. You want to go right? And there's a station of the cross and you walk behind the station to cross effectively, and then you'll come across a quite narrow track, and then you follow that up into the hills, along the ridge line. Now this is the most technical hike in the list here. It's probably one of the more technical hikes I've done in Timor-Leste.'cause you do have to walk along a ridge with exposure on both sides. You do need to be comfortable with heights and your footing, it can be quite loose and challenging underfoot. This is probably for people who've got a bit more experience and comfort with hiking. And you head basically up and up along a few ridges, get some great views around the area, and then you come back down, you join onto effectively the TER loop and you return around the coast. So it is a loop walk. It is quite challenging, but it does reward with some fantastic views and experience. Now the final three hikes are in the Dari B bar area, which I think technically is still part of Dili, but it's definitely on the outskirts of Dili. So this is up in the hills. These three are not very accessible by public transport. You will need your own transport to access these tracks. So the first one is the two Terris waterfall. This is a relatively short but can be quite slippery track out to one of the more impressive waterfalls in the dili area. Particularly if you visit in the wet season, you'll get the best waterfall, but then you'll also get the slipperiest track there. To get to this, you do need to be following the map directions'cause the start point is along a bit of a back road, but from there the track is relatively straightforward to get out to the waterfall and back. Now this is a good time to mention the Dili Saturday Walkers Group, so you can find them on Facebook and then they should add you to the WhatsApp group. They meet every Saturday morning and go for hikes around dili. All the hikes I've described today, they include in their repertoire of hikes that they do. It's a really good way of meeting other people around Dili. There's a huge variety of nationalities represented at every hike, and it's a great way of being able to do these hikes with confidence and safely because you're in a group and the leader will know where to go. And that's how I started hiking. Timor I went along with a group, built up some confidence and experience hiking in Timor, and then I got to the point where I could go off and do these hikes by myself and then develop new hikes as well. So one of the most popular hikes that they do with the group is called Above Darrow. Now you can start this from two places. We tend to start this hike from the church in Dre, but it also goes past the Dre Memorial Cafe. So you can start from either spot, but typically we start from the church. You head up along a ridge line and just goes through very beautiful and peaceful. Eucalyptus bush up in the hills, noticeably a little bit cooler than it is in dili. You get fantastic views across the city. Out towards Terro Island, and then you come back down and you have a refreshing drink and pizza or toaster sandwiches at the Memorial Cafe museum, and then return back to where we started. So that is a really lovely walk to do navigation. Again, need to follow GPS once you're up in the hills. And then the last third of it is on the road. So that's relatively straightforward. Then the final hike I'll talk to you today about. Is the be hared to dial out hike. And I've done this maybe three or four times with different variations to find out what the best route is. I think this is one of the best hikes in the Dilly region. It offers amazing views. It has lots of variety. There's some interesting religious sites. You go through some villages, it has a bit of everything. Now, this one, you're gonna start from the road that heads from dilly towards Bacao. So that main road that goes up and over the hills, when it gets to the saddle at the top, you pull over to the right and that's where you, start from, and then you basically walk up along ridge lines. There's quite a lot of wiggling around. There's a few different variants. Possible it's about a 10 k hike if you do the the full version. So this is definitely at the harder end of the hikes I've talked about today. But for those with a bit of experience hiking, dili, this one I would really recommend so these hikes demonstrated there is a huge variety of hiking opportunities within Dili, and there are many more that I've not talked about today. It is a fantastic place to hike once you've acclimatized and got used to a few of the challenges of hiking in Timor and hopefully found this episode of interest.

Jonty: 13:44

Thank you so much for listening to exploring Timor Less Day. If you've enjoyed today's episode, please consider leaving a rating or review. It really helps more people discover the show. If you have any questions or feedback, I'd love to hear from you. Drop me an email at exploring Timor lessDay@gmail.com. Until next time, or Bodo ADEs.