“Semana Santa in Indonesia.”
Looking to the past, in times of galleons plying the Indian Ocean in the Age of Discovery, when Admiral Diogo Lopes de Sequoia was in Malacca in 1509 becoming the first European to arrive in Southeast Asia, with ambitions to dominate the valuable spice route.
Almost 600 years ago, the villagers found the statue of the Virgin Mary from a Portuguese merchant ship that sank off the coast of Larantuka.
Every Easter, this small city, capital of the district of East Flores, is crammed with thousands of pilgrims, not only from surrounding islands, but also from Java, Bali, and neighbors; crossing a long and winding road to participate in processions and mark well, the only Catholic Easter in Indonesia, which mixes old Portuguese devotion to local tradition.