Day 14 - Climbing Merapi

Merapi is an active volcano on Sumatra, 2891m high. To clibm this beauty within a day we got up at 5am. The rain joined us immediately, and we were a bit doubtful of our chances.

Taxi to the village close to Merapi for Rp.100K, and good sip of a coffee with toast in the total darkness in front of the mountain. Funny that liquid coffees were given to us in small plastic bags :)

The climb started at 6:10, when the light was already out. It tool us 30 minutes to get to the only check point at forestry station, and after that the 4 hour fun began.

We passed the bridge from bamboo, observed a wierd animal on the trees - something between a squirrel and a rat. And, of course, the route got steeper and steeper. Mud changed for tree roots, tree routs to clay, clay to green stones, and finally green stones - to volcano ash with grey minerals.

Last 300 meters were especially hard, as we chose the wrong way on top and climbed the steeper side without any pathway. After a quick chocolate and cookie lunch on the top we went to research the crater.

As the first-time climber of a volcano, I was amazed with the size and activity of the volcano's heart. The smoke was coming from a 200m deep hole of a 500m diameter. The walls of the hole were layered with different colors of rock - green, red, brown and even yellowish. We tried to come to the side to see the bottom of the hole, but it was covered under rock.

Another amazing thing that I observed on the top was a full circle rainbow around the sun. My humble understanding was that rainbow is a half circle on the ground - but this one was really symbolic for me - the sun in the center, and the rainbow around it in the very zenith of the sky!

Around 1pm we moved down using the pathway this time :) The whole route took us another 3 hours, and actually I found it harder to go down - maybe my muscles are just built like that...

Back in Bukittinggi we celebrated another great day with fresh fruits and juices. And the town gratefully added another tropical wall of rain to our nicest volcano memories...

Day 10 - Rinjani

The day as usual started from negotiations. We kept in mind Angrid's words that this is our trip and selected to go to Rinjani National Park by bikes.

The road to the mountains took us longer than we expected - approximately 2.5 hours - partially because of bikes power and partially because of roads. Yetn we enjoyed one of the best sceneries in our trip - rice fields, coconut factory, authentic villages, etc.

Lombok is 90% muslim in contrast to hinduist Bali island. People in the villages are not used to tourists and many kids run towards the road to wave and say "hello!". They are so happy, when you wave them back! As our local advisor Jonny said, we are so strange and interesting with white skin and blue eyes...

Actually, some of the locals were even afraid of us - especially those, who didn't speak English. That was a bit weird, but we tried to be nice and make them smile.

Rinjani National Park is a beautiful range of mountains with volcano and the lake in the epicenter. The highest point of Rinjani is 3726m and requires three day hike. We stopped at 601m point is the village of Senaru and limited ourselves to the waterfall hike.

The first waterfall was not interesting at all, expect the locals, who were actually taking pictures of us :) We stayed there for ten minutes and went for the real hike to the second waterfall. We had to cross the river in the fast water flow, climb couple of stones and small hills, and go through the narrow jungle path.

The waterfall was amazing! We took our clothes offn jumped into the water and moved as close as possible to the falling waters. Drops were cooling the body, and humid wind with mystic sound was bringing the peace of mind and body. Swimming in the waterfall was definitely one of the best and most energizing moments of the trip.

On the way back we were just ten minutes late for the sunset :( But we saw a small village parade and celebration of something. The day ended in the souvenir shop full of emotions from the waterful and wooden masks with geko ornament in our shopping cards :)