Climbed a Gunung and I Turned Around

Climbing Indonesian volcanoes... it's my new thing.

Our 17-day October vacation started, not quite with a bang, but with about 30 hours of budget international travel. This included:

• a second-class bus trip through mainland Thailand (violent, dubbed, straight-to-DVD American action flicks permitted to play at FULL volume 10 of the 12 hours),
• a Bangkok Mega Cineplex mall, where we killed time between transit by watching Contagion - a truly frightening film to watch while living - and eating - in Asia, 
• an Indonesian public ferry boat ride, with the dankest toilets I've come across in Asia (boat motion + squatting in mysterious water puddles + dark confined spaces... this is the stuff of horror movies), and
• one very beat-up shared transport van, featuring removable stools instead of actual seats in some places.

Finally arriving in Lombok, Indonesia, however, was worth the journey.

There we met up with Steph's friend from university, who would make us a traveling fivesome for most of our time in Indonesia. After playing the classic game of "Goldilocks and the Southeast Asian Hostel" to find accommodation - (the first just had TOO many half-nude rastafarians hanging out porchside, the next didn't come with towels for guests (?), but the one with chickens roaming the front garden and shower-squat-toilet combo was juuuuuust right) - we settled in for a day on Sengiggi Beach. Our first full day was spent getting sandy $2 pedicures, snacking on Bintang beer and chicken satay at beachside cafes, and letting Steph - our resident Indonesian resident, and fluent speaker - do all the talking for us.

Tuesday morning, Katie, Liza and I set out for the literal peak of our October break: climbing to the crater rim of Mount Rinjani (Gunung Rinjani), the second highest - and still active - volcano in Indonesia. We awoke to a knock at our homestay door at 5am, and peaked out to find our trekking company driver waiting for us in the crisp early morning darkness. We'd slept through our alarm (typical), and so scrambled to pack and put on our "hiking gear" - the hodgepodge of athletic gear we'd brought from home or were able to buy in Nan's only department store - looking every bit like the ill-equipped, inexperienced 22-year-old trekkers that we were.

The driver piled our belongings into a small Toyota SUV and drove us one and a half hours to Senaru, a small village at the base of Mount Rinjani. The ride was almost entirely winding and uphill, and for the half of us who were NOT experiencing intense carsickness, the views of northern Lombok were stunning: the sun rising over fishing boats and steep cliffsides of northern Lombok; wide swaths of vivid green rice paddies and palm groves; peci-capped men draped in blanket-like cloths on their way home from morning prayer, or herding goats and cattle along the roadside.

Bahay whips up some tea and fried rice for lunch.
Our tour guide extraordinairre!

In Senaru, we were briefly briefed by the alleged "Rinjani Master" himself, Mr. John, at our trekking company's base. He showed us a map of our 2-day trek, fed us coffee, fruit and pancakes for breakfast, and sent us on our way with Bahay, our stocky 4'11'' guide with a big belly, thick mustache, and hearty chuckle - an exact Indonesian doppleganger for Nintendo Mario.

The trek - which lasted about 7 hours in total the first day - was exhausting, exhilarating, hard, beautiful, hot, chilly, and the coolest thing I've done in Asia thus far, all at once. After hiking 30 minutes just to the "Gunung Rinjani" sign (at which point I was already pretty winded and contemplated heading back to Mr. John's), we continued onward through dense rainforest, along vine-covered tree paths, areas where misty fog rolled in and out and the temperature dropped, and up through the dry, rocky, torched landscape around the top. Some parts of the hike felt like doing a tree-root StairMaster for hours on end, while others involved hiking up - and often sliding down - steep paths of loose rock and sand. Bahay patiently tolerated our frequent rest stops, water stops, bathroom stops, and emergency bathroom stops all over that mountainside, even carrying some our things for part of the way.

Superhuman porters. No SHOES?!

Meanwhile, our porters, ranging from age 20s to 60s, booked it up that volcano with astonishing ease and speed. They carried at least five times the weight we did, in two supply-filled baskets tied at either end of a thick bamboo stick and slung over their sinewy bare shoulders. Some didn't even wear shoes (others wore only flip-flops). They stopped only occasionally for small snacks and cigarette breaks. Bahay told us they might do the trek 2 or 3 times in a week.

By early afternoon, we reached the top. We stood at the edge of an enormous crater, a huge sky-blue volcanic lake below us, and a volcano island in the center. There were clouds below us, hugging the mountainside in every direction. The sun set in a vibrant orange-pink sky to one side, and a full moon rose up on the other. I even spied the biggest shooting star I've ever witnessed when the sky turned to night. I mean, C'MON. It. Was. Incredible.

Seriously.

The porters cooked us dinner and hot tea, and afterwards we piled on thick socks, sweaters, jackets, and down sleeping bags - feeling the coldest I've ever felt in Asia. The wind was immense at our camp site, and throughout the night it felt like our tents were going to knock right over. But a few bedtime stories from Katie later, we finally drifted off.  

Trekking back down on Day 2 was immensely easier, but in the end, just as tiring as the hike up. We were so hot and dirty and exhausted by lunchtime, that we were at some points skipping or running down the mountainside just to be done with it and able to rest our legs. By the end of the day, we were back at John's, saying sweet farewells to Bahay & Co., and on our way to our next Indonesian destination..... Gili T!