When I arrived in senggigi, I thought I’d be staying two nights, so that’s what i paid for at my hotel…it turned out that I signed up for a rinjani trek starting the next morning, so I arranged with the lady at the hotel for my payment to cover the night I came back from the trek…she also said she’d put some fruit in the fridge for me to grab in the morning, since breakfast isn’t served that early…YAY!!
0500 pickup…ugh…I wasn’t thrilled about that, to say the least…to make sure I was ready to go, I had my alarm set for 0400…I wasn’t going to be taking everything with me on the trek, so I needed a bit of time to separate things, and I never move fast at that hour, though I do function…the taxi (I was surprised it was a taxi) picked up another trekker just down the road, a British student named Richard…then it took us two hours to a village called senaru…senaru is where all the trekking companies have their offices, and it’s always the starting or ending point of treks up and down the volcano…
Richard and I had arranged to start our trek in a village called sembalun, off the western edge of the volcano…after leaving stuff behind, a ute took us to sembalun with our guide and porter, where we got our official national park entry tickets, and signed the book saying that we were trekking…(safety, I guess?)…this was when I found out Richard was only 20 years old!! He’s in Lombok and Bali for a couple weeks with his mom…then she goes back to the UK, and he travels overland up to Mongolia…
The first bit of the trek was through flattish ground…always aiming up a little, but nothing strenuous…everyone was sweating because the sun was behind us and quite strong, but it wasn’t hard…yet…we broke for lunch not long after the trail got steeper…it was still an easy path, just a bit more steep…I wondered why we needed a guide, because there seemed to be just one path, it wasn’t as if we could get lost…lunch was basically ramyeon, with rice as well…and pineapple and tea…most trekking companies break for meals at the same places along the trail, so we met several others who were doing the trek in the same direction we were walking…one American geologist couple who live on Sumatra, a Swedish/French couple…
After lunch we kept going, for another hour or so before taking a break…this was where the ground got steep, there were lots of roots and rocks to watch out for, climb over, etc…our guide told us it would be another three hours to the top…by that point we were all feeling it a bit, and well aware we’d be knackered when we got to the top…when the guide said three hours, I gave myself four hours in my head, as I know I’m slower than most trekkers…slow, but steady…I don’t like taking breaks, and apparently my guide and Richard did…at one point I stopped taking the breaks with them, I just kept going…I wanted to get to the top, and I knew that every time we stopped it got harder for me…it was hard going, and I wanted to be finished for the day…after not too long, we hiked into the clouds…clouds have a strange way of completely muffling sound, I couldn’t hear anything but my footsteps…
Surprisingly, three hours later I did get to the top…the crater rim, that is…I guess all the break taking slowed others down, though they were faster hikers than I was…just before reaching the top I broke through the clouds, so I could see where I was going, and I could see the peak we’d be going for the next morning…what I couldn’t see was anything down either side of the crater…I knew there was a lake in the crater, but I couldn’t see it at all…not surprisingly, our porter made it up before we did…I don’t know how they do it, carrying everything, and only wearing jandals…he had both of the tents set up, and had water heating to make tea…not only does everyone break for meals at the same place, just about everyone camps in the same area…some tents were definitely nicer than others…lol…people who’d signed up for the luxury treks had little stools on which to sit, the rest of us sat on the ground when we weren’t in our tents…I was rather surprised at the amount of trash on the ground, I guess porters don’t clean up all that well, which is really disappointing…that, and they use trees to make fires, instead of bringing stoves…I get the impression that environmentally, the ways the treks are being done right now won’t be sustainable for much longer…
About 45 minutes later Richard made it up, I was sitting in our tent, writing a letter…just as he got there, our porter brought us tea…yum…about an hour after that, dinner was served…fried rice with a fried egg on top…and a giant prawn cracker…and a piece of fried chicken…normally I like prawn crackers, but this one seemed particularly fishy tasting, so I only had a couple bites…and I’m not big on nasi goring (fried rice) so I only ate about half of that…Richard and I went to be almost as soon as we were done eating, I think most people did so as well…we knew we had to get up early (REALLY early,) and the hike had worn people out…plus, there was no view to enjoy, with the clouds covering everything…
0230 came pretty early…that’s when our guide woke us with tea (and coffee for Richard)…that and a few crackers was our predawn snack…at 0307, we were on our way…up…up…up…the idea was to go for the peak of the crater rim, which is at 3724m I think…3700m+, and I earned every one of them…almost from the beginning of this part of the trek, the path was made of soft sand/dirt/scree…there weren’t many strong footholds, so it took a lot more effort to make forward progress…plus, it was pitch black…I had my head torch so I could see where to put my feet, but I didn’t have any sense of where I was…challenging, to say the least…I had no idea where my guide was, again…somewhere in front of me, until he was taking a break and I kept going…I kept going slowly and steadily until I got to a really windy spot…REALLY WINDY…the kind of wind where you have to turn your head to the side, because you can’t see (if it was light anywho) or breath properly…the path was really challenging the entire way…I briefly stopped behind a rock, along with about 15 others…the rock blocked the wind very nicely, you didn’t notice how strong it was until you stood up again…I think people were waiting out the wind, or maybe waiting for sunrise…either way, I didn’t want to keep waiting…I knew the distance left wasn’t great, but it was only going to get harder, so I stepped into the wind, and started moving forward again…
Not long after that rock, the going got really really hard…I have no idea what distance I had left, but the path changed again, into even less sturdy stuff…the rocks were completely loose, there was no traction whatsoeva…combine that with the vertical aspect, and quite a few times I was essentially on a natural treadmill…taking steps, but not making any forward progress at all…at all…so frustrating…plus, the wind was still going strong, so I couldn’t stand up straight…each time I picked up my head to see where I needed to go (by this point the sun was starting to come up, I could see shadows) the wind would catch me and push me a bit…which wasn’t good, considering the path was fairly thin, and it would’ve been easy to fall over either side of the crater…I cried more than once, when I wasn’t making any progress…sometimes the wind got so strong I was sliding down the path without picking up my head at all…I was so unhappy…eventually, I made it…four hours after starting the hike, I made it to the peak…a ray of light shown on the peak, which was quite nice…the view from the peak wasn’t any better than what I’d seen on the way up…I did it, and that’s about all I can say…it wasn’t worth the physical pain, the mental stress, or the views…it turned out that because of the crazy wind, not many people made it to the top…only 7 of us…no guides…I was number 4…a lot of people got to the rock I mentioned earlier, or just a bit farther before turning around, including Richard…about the only reason I made it to the top was because I didn’t want to say I didn’t make it…that’s a terrible way to find motivation, but that’s how it worked for me…
The way back down hurt…as tired as my legs were from going up, they weren’t ready for going down…the soft stuff was fun to go down, there was almost no impact…with each step I’d land on my heel, and sortof slide a bit…a few times my legs kindof gave out on me, so I fell/sat…surprisingly, my guide was waiting for me behind the rock, and came back down to camp with me…given how weak my legs felt at that point, it was probably a good thing he was there…the hardest point was right before reaching camp, as there were a number of actual steps down, and my legs weren’t supporting me very well…lots of falling on my arse…I was so tired…
Breakfast was tea again, (I only dumped 8lbs of sugar into itJ) and banana pancakes…sooo good…lots of sugar, which I sorely needed…after eating, I dumped out my shoes…there was an amazing amount of dirt/sand in them…I tried wiping off my backpack and coat, but that didn’t do much…I used two wet tissues to wipe off my face, they were both black when I was done with them…and I knew I had dirt in my nose…my nose always runs when I’m going up steeply, and all the wind had added a bunch of dirt…I had dirt coming out of my nose for the next two days!...
About 45 minutes later, we packed up, and started making our way down into the crater…my legs were not enjoying this down, it wasn’t s smooth path…every foot had to be placed, and it was a constant game of picking out the easiest way…and none of it was easy…my quads were screaming with every step down…after a little over an hour, the path evened out a bit…it was still going down, but not so steeply, and it was more of a dirt path, not rocks and roots everywhere…
Two hours and fifteen minutes total after breakfast, we got to the lake at the bottom of the crater…it felt like a lot longer than that, but that’s what my watch told me…the flatter parts of the path were surprisingly easy for me, but the steep, step picking parts were really hard…our guide showed us where we’d be eating lunch, then took us to some hot springs…the springs are right next to a lovely waterfall…the locals have built different pools, all of them rather small…people sit in them for as long as they like…Richard put on his togs, and hopped in…I had a bikini with me, but wasn’t completely comfortable putting that on, so I just stuck my feet in the hottest pool…it felt wonderful…putting my shoes and socks back on afterward didn’t feel so wonderful…
Lunch was the same as the day before, and I gobbled it up…
Our afternoon hike started along the edge of the lake, which was really nice…there is very little shoreline in some places between the lake and the crater wall going up…lots of locals fishing…In an area with more space between the lake and the crater wall, I saw a few fish being cooked over a fire…it looked sooo good…my guide said that the fish are sometimes sold to trekkers…too bad, we didn’t get any fish…eventually the guide started us on a path up…just like the second half of the day before…up…up…up…climbing up roots and rocks, very little flat area…lots of step picking…lots of using my hands as balance on various rocks…it would’ve been hard to begin with, but combined with what I’d done earlier in the day, and the day before made it even more difficult…fortunately, the guide had figured out that I go slowly, and steadily…he only took a couple breaks, during which I drank a whole lot of water…we never went fast, so my breathing never got crazy…more than once I hoped for a magic fairy to come and fly me to the top…thankfully, there were lots of great views over the lake, and the little volcano in the middle…
Two and a half hours later, we got back up to the crater rim…our camping spot was right on the edge of the rim…there was room for just two tents, and two more tents about 10m away…I didn’t know where others were camping, but it felt a lot more private this evening…dinner was again served at 1800, again preceeded by tea…and again Richard and I went to sleep almost as soon as we were done with eating…10.5 hours of hiking in one day…very little of it was “easy”…
Our third day was the easiest, but that’s just a relative term…we did get to sleep in, all the way to 0630…I could hear the guide and porter moving around at 0600…after breakfast, (banana pancakes and a sandwich made with white bread – the crusts were cut off) we started making our way down around 0730…the first two hours and some were steep…lots of steep, step picking…going over and around roots and rocks…where as my legs had been really tired, and not functioning so well the day before, they hadn’t been too painful…this third day every step hurt, and my feet hated me…I wonder if I’ll lose any toenails…after a couple hours of this steep stuff, we got a few patches of smoother trail, which felt like heaven…still going down, but I didn’t have to worry so much about falling down a mountain…
We passed numerous porters, guides and trekkers going the other way, and I was glad I wasn’t them…we stopped a couple times for water, and once for the last pineapple the porter was carrying…good, and I wasn’t keen to eat a full lunch anywho…
About 5 hours after starting, we got to the end of the trek…a van picked us up and took us back to where I’d left the rest of my stuff…then it took us back to senggigi…I’m amazed Richard could stand to be in the same van with me, I know I smelled disgusting…layers of sweat and dirt…yuck…he had a flight to catch that night with his mom to Bali…thankfully I didn’t have much to do, I didn’t need to worry about reorganizing my stuff so fast…
A shower has rarely felt that good!
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