Our four-wheel drive barely makes the climb to Suco Liurai, a small village high on the hillside above Maubisse, in the centre of East Timor. The dirt road is pitted and rough, climbing past round, thatched huts and small pastures into the mountains, which reach almost 3,000 metres into the sky.
We're in search of the wreckage of a Liberator bomber, which sits on a high plateau above the small village. The local children know the site of the wreck and, after a short stop at the school, our visit becomes an impromptu field trip to see it.
The air is thin and the climb over the crest of a ridge and into the thin woods where the Liberator crashed leaves me short of breath. The children take it in their stride, scrambling easily over the slope and down to what's left of the plane.
Most of the wreck was once visible but villagers have used what they can for scrap metal. Only the undercarriage, too heavy to carry, remains, along with some rusting bits of machinery hidden in a culvert. The children horse around and pose for pictures on the huge metal 'leg' of the plane.
Timorese tour company Eco Discovery rediscovered the wreck in November 2008. Australian army records show the Liberator took off from Darwin and crashed on the mountain on May 17, 1945, while on a reconnaissance flight. Villagers buried the crew in a crude shallow grave next to the plane. Australian troops later confirmed the wreck from the engine plates and took the bodies to Ambon, in Indonesia, for proper burial.
You can examine the site where the bodies were first buried, a small dip in the ground, which lends the place an eerie atmosphere. It's also possible to tell where the plane hammered into the mountain slope, scraping open a plateau in the hillside that is now covered with grass. Shards of metal rust in the soil.