The elusive lake

Tonight we walked to the elusive third lake at Tasitolu Peace Park; the one we finally saw from the window of the aeroplane upon leaving Dili for Bali (see Dili to Denpasar Bali). This lake turned out to be fairly uninteresting as you cannot circumnavigate its shore and there was hardly a bird in sight. Still, it was interesting to see the view of the area from a different perspective and we spent some time contemplating the history of the numerous burnt out buildings in its vicinity. As this lake is right on the edge of the border between Dili and the district of Liquiçá, I speculated that the buildings were once some form of Immigration control used by the Indonesian military to track the movements of its beleaguered Timorese citizenry. However, the whole area was also a dumping ground for murdered Timorese so perhaps the buildings were used for even more sinister activities such as torture. It is certainly a disquieting experience to walk around the remains of buildings, where it is not beyond the realm of the impossible, that such things took place.