I guess I've been neglecting this pretty badly. I was looking at the date on when I started writing this entry & its on the 30th of June! Whoops! A lot has happened since then & I'll try to catch up with a few short posts as best as I can. This post is about Gurang Rinjani, a volcano we climbed in Indonesia but as it progressed it turned into a big un such that by the end of this I'm still only at 6am on day two of three. Hopefully this will be part one of two posts on Gurang Rinjani. The experience that turned out to be one of the most memorable things we've done so it is worthy of a long article!
(Below was started back in June)
We were staying on the Gili islands trying to decide between spending our last chunk of money on scuba diving or the Komodo Island Trip when we met 2 Dutch girls who had just come back from climbing a volcano on Lombok. We had made friends with a couple of the locals & after talking to them about the different trips we decided on the Volcano.
Gurang Rinjani is a large volcano crater on one of the Indonesian islands called Lombok. Rinjani itself could be considered dormant, however within the 8.5km wide crater is a huge lake. In the center of that lake is another volcano called Gunung Barujari which is very much active! The lake is at a height of 2000m and the highest point of the Rinjani crater is 3726 meters.
We signed up to a 4 day trip which was meant to go something like this;
Day 1 - We get a boat to Lombok, drive to the mountain and check out some waterfalls on the north side for the day.
Day 2 - Get up early and drive to the east side of the mountain. Then we hike to Camp 1 which is at 2700m.
Day 3 - Up at 2am, hike to the summit (3726m) for sunrise at 6am. Back to Camp 1 and then hike down to the lake (2000m) for lunch. Then hike up the north ridge and Camp 2 (2800m).
Day 4 - Hike back down to where the waterfalls from Day 1. Jump in a jeep & back to the Gilis!
(I think this part is from August)
Surprisingly everything pretty much went as planned except for the first two hours of day 1! We mixed up with out guide, Yuki & showed up at his house at 6am instead of the Port. We managed to wake up his friend who rang him & he told us to get to the port fast. We made it to the port and it turned out two of the group we had gathered for the trip had decided not to come! Our group had gone from 5 to 3 and we had only gone about 1km. As it turned out this was a bit of an issue for us as we hadagreed on a price for 5 people, without getting into details we had to cough up more money each to make up for the two girls bailing. We had missed the boat while all this was happening but eventually jumped on the next one & set sail.
On Lombok we met our main guide, Sujar, and started the drive to the mountain wth a quick side stop for some supplies (pants for Colm). At the base of the mountain we met the owner of the hiking company Harry. Harry sent us up to his brother, Micheal where we would stay for the night. Two strong Indonesian names right there ;)
We rocked up as the house where we encountered none other than Micheal Cane, who spoke in a pretty good British accent, proceeded to yell "I told you to only blow the bloody doors off" and then disappeared! Amid the laughing we managed to unpack and have a quick lunch. Sujar soon showed up and we headed off to check out the waterfalls.
(September now)
We crossed the road and headed straight into the forest, descending along a muddy trail into the mist. Only then did I find out we were already at 900meters, sad when you think Ireland's highest mountain is 1030meters! The first waterfall was very beautiful, but the second one was the real deal. We walked further into the forest following the local water aqueducts which are cut out of stone and run through the forest. The walk was about 30 minutes from the first waterfall, across a stream and through some thick vegetation. The rain started about 15 minutes into the walk. :(
The walk into the waterfall was amazing, try to imagine a wide forest canyon with steep heavily forested sides, trees and leaves so big you could (& we did) use them as an umbrella. You can hear the river flowing down to your right but can't see it through the canopy, then we finally burst through into cul-de-sac of rock. Water is pouring over the rock face and smashing down into a huge pool where the river flows down over rapids and disappears into the forest. The spray from the waterfall was everywhere, it filled the cul-de-sac like a heavy mist to the point that even if it hadn't been raining we would have been soaked. Awesome.
Sujar & Valerie retreated under a rock ledge and shivered while the Irish stripped down and went swimming. The water was ice cold but lovely, it numbed you to the core but no more than swimming off the west coast in May! The hardy Irish are well used to it! The mist was so heavy that I only managed to get the camera out for two quick shots & never got one of the entire waterfall, but the memory of the place will stick for quite some time! We made our way back to Michael's and truly appreciated a hot cup of tea for the first time in months!
Michael and his friend came to talk to us about the World Cup pool games that night. The Indonesians are mad for betting and every night in the Gilli's the pub was packed with them watching the games. That night proved to be no different, we told the two guys who we thought were favourites for the night & they headed off to places their bets. Michael invited us to the room under the restaurant where we could watch the game with them, over the course of the next hour the room filled with 25 locals all of whom were men. I think 6 of them watched the game & the rest spent the time gambling only turning their attention to the matches when a score could have affected their world cup bets. The room could best be imagined by picturing the stereotypical smoke filled gambling room portrayed in one of the old James Bond movies. I think it was a Roger Moore film.
6am, up & atom! We had a quick breakie and jumped in the van which was bringing us to the East Side of the mountain. The journey was over an hour long so Colm jumped up on the roof with our guide to enjoy the view. Was a little dodge on the steep hills. The can brought us to to 1100meters where we met our porters. These guys were amazing, they carried all the food, water, tents, pots/pans etc on a thick bamboo on their shoulder. The weight was incredible, I tried to pick it up before we set off & had to use both arms, I couldn't imagine carrying it on my shoulder for 5 minutes let alone 4 days!
(And today!)
The walk into the mountain was beautiful, chest high grass and giant lava paths hundreds of years old covered the side of the mountain. We hiked for about 3/4 hours before we broke for lunch, Valerie collapsed on the ground while myself & Colm stretched for ages! The two porters started cooking lunch, I can't remember what the meal was except that is was amazing! In fact all the food they cooked over the next few days was superb. It was the best food I had the whole time I was in Indonesia.
After about an hour break we set off again for the steep part of the ascent. We passed two other groups who were also hiking up the mountain and Colm & I somehow ended up in the lead with one of our porters. We dubbed him superman, he had just come back from a 4 day hike on the mountain & was out again with us for another 3 days. That first day his load was the heaviest but he was ahead of everyone! We finally caught him just before the rim of the base camp. At that point we were very far ahead of everyone else, Sujar had stayed back with Val. The entire rim was covered in thick mist and just as we were congratulating ourselves on making it up the mist parted to show how far off the summit still was! The guides made camp on the side of the mountain and set us up with a great dinner. The mist cleared as the sun set and a full moon came out. The view from the rim was stunning. We sat up for an hour under a full moon watching a lightning storm on the horizon.
Up at atom at 2am. It was bloody freezing! It was about 3 or 4 degrees with a wind chill bringing it down to below zero. We sat up drinking lots of tea and some eggs before we headed off into the night about 3am to climb the final 1000m to the summit. As we reached the second rim we heard what we thought was more thunder from the storm but was actually an eruption! Believe it or not it was only at this point that I realized the volcano was still active. I was slightly scared for a couple of minutes before the guide explained it hadn't had a large eruption since 2005. Super. ;)
The hike up that last 1000m height was tough. Very tough. The ground turned into loose stones which really was two steps forward one step back. Val dropped off fast enough, she got very very cold but Sujar stuck with her pushing her onwards. Colm & myself kept pushing into the dark. This was the hardest point of the hike and most amazing. The Volcano was 1000m down to our right inside the old cater. A storm was rolling in off the sea about 800m on the left, the wind was freezing, we kept slipping back on the stones with every tired step but the whole time the summit was creeping a little closer. When I made the top I was so exhilarated but exhausted! It was a hard feeling to describe, I yelled into the dark urging Colm that he was almost there and a couple of minutes later we both sat exhausted watched the sun rise over the horizon.
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