Lake Poso
Indonesia'S Third Largest Lake, An Ancient Body Of Water With Fish Found Nowhere Else, In A District Whose Name Most Indonesians Know For The Conflict Rather Than The Lake · Tentena, Central Sulawesi
Lake Poso is INDONESIA'S THIRD-LARGEST LAKE and one of its deepest, sitting at around five hundred metres in the middle of Sulawesi with WHITE SAND BEACHES ON ITS SHORES, which is a strange thing to find at altitude and inland. IT IS ALSO AN ANCIENT LAKE - old enough that its FISH AND SHRIMP EVOLVED INTO SPECIES FOUND NOWHERE ELSE, and the endemic eels that migrate through it are part of a system now being altered by HYDROELECTRIC DEVELOPMENT ON THE POSO RIVER, which is a live and unresolved local argument. AND THE NAME CARRIES SOMETHING ELSE. BETWEEN 1998 AND 2001 THIS DISTRICT WENT THROUGH COMMUNAL VIOLENCE BETWEEN CHRISTIAN AND MUSLIM COMMUNITIES THAT KILLED WELL OVER A THOUSAND PEOPLE and displaced many times that, with aftershocks for years. That is what most Indonesians hear in the word. It is settled, people are welcoming, and the row says so rather than pretending the association does not exist.
Danau Poso, Poso Regency, Central Sulawesi, Tentena, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia
TENTENA, at the northern end of the lake, is the usual base - roughly SIX TO EIGHT HOURS BY ROAD FROM PALU or a similar run up from Makassar's direction, on winding routes that are slow in any weather. THERE IS NO GATE AND NO ADMISSION; the lake is open water with villages and beaches around it. SIMPLE GUESTHOUSES are at Tentena and along the shore. BOATS ARE HIRED INFORMALLY at the villages. SALUOPA WATERFALL, a broad multi-tiered fall in the forest nearby, charges a small fee. THE BADA VALLEY MEGALITHS are a further hard drive inland. THIS IS A MIXED CHRISTIAN AND MUSLIM AREA and Sunday is observed in Tentena. MALARIA ADVICE APPLIES. Bring cash; banking outside Tentena is minimal.