Looking to the past, in times of galleons plying the Indian Ocean in the Age of Discovery, when Admiral Diogo Lopes de Sequeira, in 1509 became the first European to arrive in Southeast Asia, with the ambition to dominate the valuable spice route. Almost 600 years, decades before the order of the Dominicans led by Father Antonio da Taveria landed in southeastern Indonesia to evangelize the island of Flores, the locals found the effigy of the Virgin Mary from a Portuguese merchant ship shipwrecked off the coast of Larantuka.
Every Easter, this small city, capital of the district of East Flores, overrun with thousands of pilgrims, crossing a long and winding road to participate in processions and to commemorate, the only Catholic easter in Indonesia, blending old Portuguese devotion with local tradition.
