The Queen Volcano

My next destination was to climb Gunung Rinjani, which means queen volcano, but was a queen in much more than just the name. From Gili Air, I was able to arrange the volcano trek as well as a boat through the komodos for quite a good price. In fact, I was able to get the trek down to pay for 1 person what they listed as the cost for a group. Wanted to book from the islands even though it’s usually much more expensive there just b/c I had booked this amazing sailing trip leaving from Maumere, Flores on Oct. 5th, so I was now dealing with a time budget as well, and if you take the public transport, etc to get to the volcano base and then look for a group and a guide and all that, you could ”waste“ at least a day. The day of the 23rd, I was expecting to take a boat back to lombok and then take a van to senaru at the base of the volcano where I would spend the night before starting early the next morning. But turns out I took the boat, took a 2 hour moto ride (which was a really gorgeous motorcycle ride, actually, through the dry then lush flores countryside and one that felt great after all the moto wet moto rides in sumatra, b/c this one was very very sunny. Also one of the always cool things when you take these random motorcycle transport rides is that the driver usually has to stop by his family’s house to get something or other before going on so you get taken through a narrow maze of back paths (on the motorcycle of course with your knees tucked in as close as possible to avoid hitting buildings) to his house where his kids and a whole bunch of other kids come out to look at you inquisitively like your some strange animal, but then get more and more adventurous and come up to you before ultimately asking for a photo and then going crazy with laughter and screams when you show them their picture. Then of course is always his wife and sisters who bring out tea and rice or fruit and then his mother or grandmother who is so old, but always smiles a friendly toothless smile, points for you to sit down and then just sort of watches you smiling the whole time) , arrived at senaru a bit before 11 and then was told I was starting that day. A bit of a surprise, but I wouldn’t argue b/c that would give me an extra day I hadn’t scheduled and would possibly allow me to make it back to bali to pick up my atm card if it had arrived. For the first day I was put with 2 cali (cher and sherri) girls who were just doing the 2 day 1 night trek up to the rim. It was quite nice being with some young americans and catching up a bit on what was going on back in ’Merica. They were actually the first americans I had met since Evan back in Kalimantan at the end of July. They were just out for their 2 week american holiday (accountants), but still found it worth it to travel far and had been doing a trip like this every year...to thailand or patagonia, here or where ever. They were west coast girls, cher had a brother who had gone to CU to ski and the Sherri had roommate who worked for ESPN (umm..dream job, right conrad and bill) who travelled all over to sporting events, one which is the x-games in Aspen, so she had some gear along from that.

The hike up to the crater rim wasn’t too tough, but took 7 hours with our guide Audie. You have to take porters with you and these guys are amazing. They carry these heavy loads from two baskets attached to a bamboo pole and do the hike up in their flip flops (or some occassionally barefoot). It is people like this that I always wonder what they think of westerners all decked out in their fancy tech equipment (middle-aged euros seemed to have the most hi-tech equipment, it’s pretty crazy) suitable to climb mt. Everest, yet going slow and complaining on the way up. The first ¾ of the hike was through forests before opening up into this dry, dry grasslandish area that could have easily been the boise foothills with baking sun, dry grass, and the occassional conifer in the gullies as well as a very dry breeze. Ahh...felt good to be back in the dry west =) The sun was starting to set rapidly and we enjoyed one of the more amazing sunsets I have seen on this trip (I have seen many a spectacular one)—up there in that dry open area with a spectacular view down the mountain to the forests below, the ocean, the 3 gili islands, and mount agung on bali towering in the distance. Breathtaking. The guide had said after lunch that instead of going to the rim like planned we would camp about 45 minutes below it since we had gotten a late start due to all 3 of us coming from the gilis. To me this wasn’t acceptable. Why not go the last 45 minutes in the dark to get to the top? b/c if we didn’t do it this night, we would have to do it at 4 in the morning anyways to make it to the rim for sunrise. He said we would see when we got to the newly proposed campsite, but I fully intended to go to the top no matter what, I mean it is my trip. I convinced the girls of this as well b/c one way or the other we would have to climb in the dark and I would prefer at night at 7pm rather than at 4am when it would be freezing cold. Wouldn’t it be much nicer to wake up at the rim, have some hot tea and stay in your warm sleeping bag to watch the sunrise. After watching sunset, the guide still wanted to camp below, claiming the porters would be too tired and have too much trouble going up at this time, which I knew to be somewhat nonesense. I had a torch and told him I would go the 45 minutes up with my gear, then come back down and carry the porters‘ stuff for them, but he said we needed to all stay together since the girls didn’t have a torch and the 2 porters only had 1 between them. When the porters caught up to us, it seemed that morale was low for going up. Both girls were pretty tired and it seemed the porters didn’t want to go up. But I had some tricks up my sleeve. First, with the girls I started some good conversation, which always takes your mind off of the hiking and I think they felt much better and even picked up the pace. And with the porters, I had my large backpack, so I took 6, 1.5L waterbottles from them put them into my pack, then also grabbed one of the big 2 basket bamboo pole things they carry, hefted it onto my shoulder and started climbing up at high speed. By the time the empty porter and the guide caught me halfway up, I think they were impressed (I’m sure they think of most tourists as weak and spoiled) and definitely newly motivated. We made it to the rim by about 8 and I helped set up the tent as I promised I would do. Usually the porters do it, which I think is crazy anyways, but the guide had said they couldn’t do it here without a torchlight. It was windy and quite cold up there, but entirely worth it. Because from the crater rim we looked down onto the new volcanic cone growing out of the massive crater and it was active! You could see the lava flowing right out. What a sight! Actually the rinjani climb had been closed to go to the very top for the past couple months b/c of heavier eruptions and you could only go to the rim where we were now, but it had just opened up, to my great excitement about a week or two before. We had a yummy meal of fresh chicken and of course nasi goreng before crawling into our sleeping bags. I had loaned the girls my (clean) socks to use as mittens as wells as an extra long sleeve shirt and rain coat for warmth. They were also concerned about hypothermia (which they were obviously far from), but I assured them I knew how to treat. The next day when we were able to sleep in a bit and watch the sunrise from close proximity to our tents, they both thanked me for helping them with the cold and making sure that we had made it to the rim that night and said they were lucky to be paired with me. That night was a nasty windstorm in which no one slept too well. I actually got some decent sleep even though my rainfly had blown off and was fluttering loudly all night and letting the cold air in which was a bit of a problem since my sleeping bag was designed to fit your average height asian man (5ft) so my shoulder were out. And of course at some point my whole tent collapsed. But I guess I’m a bit used to sleeping in rough conditions (from this trip and camping back home). There were some people a bit higher up that told me that day they didn’t even sleep a wink.

The sunrise was gorgeous, but the vista it revealed as it rose higher was breathtaking. A giant turquoise lake in the middle of a huge crater with a towering peak on one side of the crater and smack in the middle of the lake a new smoking volcano. In the morning you could still see the lava at dawn, but once the sun rose up it was too bright and you would have missed it...so good thing we had made it up to the crater that night. So we sat there wrapped in our sleeping bags and watched the beautiful view unfold. Truly stunning with the turquoise lake and the volcano and sheer crater cliffs and just everything. And of course if you turned around and looked the other way you could see the ocean, the gili islands, and bali. And of course monkeys running around the rim as well. Just so spectacular all around. And as the sun climbed higher and higher the tuquoise lake became more and more stunning. Eventually I said goodbye to the girls and they headed back down to senaru and I headed down into the crater. It was a steep hike down to the lake, but absolutely stunning with the views.

The lake shore was a bit busy considering our location. There were maybe 30 locals there that had set up camp and were fishing. Don’t ask how fish got way up this mountain into a crater lake, ok, well I did, guess someone carried some live fish up there to stock it. At first I was a little scared to eat some fish coming out of there—images of the movie dante’s peak with it’s acid lakes and dead fish came to mind—but when fresh fish is handed to you by a nice local dude, it’s hard to say no. While the porter and guide prepared another tasty meal I went to the hot springs that were near the crater. It was in fact a hot springs river that near the source was much too hot to swim in, but they had created 4 pools which I called The Egg (you could boil and egg in it, which some indonesians were doing), Kamikaze (perfect temp for the Japanese who can take water hotter than anyone else), the hot tub (normal hot tub weather) and Goldilocks (b/c it was just perfect temp for me to soak in). After I had thoroughly relaxed, with a gang of monkeys watching, I went out exploring because I was fascinated by this hot springs river. It was so impressive b/c it was this whitish-green color and just had so much volume of water for a hotsprings. It wasn’t like a big river in yellowstone that has little streams of hot water flowing in where you build pools to soak, no, this ENTIRE river was hot water. I followed it down a canyon for a while climbing down some steep pitches that weren’t that bad, nothing compared to some of the things we’d do on a regular basis for work at Rocky, but the guide later informed me they had no idea what was down there and that it was too dangerous to check out. Well, what I found was some of the most amazing hot springs areas I had ever seen. Huge waterfalls of colored and hot water falling into huge pools. It was like a hot springs wonderland. It’s hard to beat places like strawberry park hotsprings in the snow in steamboat, but this place came dang close! I mean, swimming in a waterfall is one thing, but swimming in a hot one in a gorgeous canyon on the side of a huge volcano is a whole other one. After the hotsprings and the waterfalls I went up to have lunch along the turquoise lake in plane site of the smoking new volcano. By then it had warmed up pretty good, so I jumped into the lake (putting aside all dante’s peak acid lake fears, mainly b/c many of the indonesians were wading in it.) for a very refreshing swim. The smoking volcano, with some vents lakeside was so close, it would have just taken a couple minutes to swim to it (it’s kind of an island in the middle of the lake), but without my crazy brother and with a bunch of indonesians intently watching (they usually can’t swim and tend to be scared of deep water and were already obviously nervous with me as deep as I was—if you asked an indonesian if it is possible to swim to the island (200m) they would say no b/c it is too far and one would drown), I decided not to.

After the swim in the lake, it was time to hike back up to the rim of the crater on the otherside. On the hike up we saw a pretty large wildfire (yet another indonesian natural disaster I have witnessed) across the canyon. But soon a dense and chilly fog rolled in to be with us the rest of the hike to the rim. However, it did clear for a nice view of the sunrise from this other side of the crater rim. I had noticed on the hike up that my guide seemed to be struggling a bit and was going real slow, which worried me a bit. At the camp on the crater rim there was a fair amount of people b/c most do the 2d/1n summit climb whereas I was doing the 3d/2n rim to rim to summit trip (though if I did it again I would do the 4 day trip and spend a night by the hotsprings and lake.). Some of the people were on very fancy trips, a lot were french with french speaking guides, but I was definitely the only one with my own guide.

We started climbing Rinjani at 3am the next morning. It was quite the impressive hike up. The whole hike up your on this crater ridge that drops off thousands of feet to your right into the crater, and nearly the whole way up you can see the little volcano glowing red with its lava and making lots and lots of noise, mostly sounding like a jet plane, but then changing when a little more gas or something comes out. When we reached the base of the scree field a little after 4, I was really worried that at the pace my guide was going we would not make the summit by sunrise, so I asked if I could go ahead and then did so. The scree field goes the rest of the way to the summit and is quite difficult as it is all loose rock (one of those take 1 step forward and fall 2 steps back). As I felt that I needed to make up time and the summit seemed so far up and far away, I powered up it. But I made it by 5am just as the dawn is starting and my guide even made it minutes before the sun actually rose at a bit past 6, but I was glad to make it by dawn b/c then you could look down at the lake and the little volcano and still see the lava eruption. The view from the top of Rinjani (3726m, 12,296ft) was stunning as well. Down into the crater with it’s lake and little volcano, out over the crater to the ocean, the gili islands, gunung agung, and bali and then back the other way towards the ocean and Sumbawa. It was a tough climb, especially with the scree and probably less than one quarter of the people who started made the summit. The way down was much easier though as you could essentially ski down the scree...nothing like a foot of freshy fresh basaltic pow. Went back down to camp for a banana pancake breakfast with the monkeys and view of the lake. From there we went all the way down to the village of sembulan lawang. Almost the entire way down was devoid of trees with tall grass and some dry canyons. From sembulan took a bemo back to senaru and then shared a car with a friendly dutch guy named Rudy to Sengiggi (sengiggles to me). Went down to the beach there that afternoon and there was quite the party on the beach as it was one of the post ramadan weekend celebrations (perhaps idul fitri). That evening I arranged a motorcycle ride to leave at 5 am to take me to lembar port for the 6am ferry to bali. But by 6am it had become obvious he was not coming, and I was not too happy as at that hour on a weekend it’s nearly impossible to find transport. And I had told Nyoman, my friend back in Bali with my new atm card that I would be in denpasar a bit after noon. Finally got one around 7am and headed to lembar and then onto the 5 hour ferry to padang bai and then the bemo ride to denpasar where I was able to meet the saint Nyoman with my new ATM card. I wanted to call right then and there the number to activate my card as I saw a telkmosel office right across from the bus station, which are the only places in indonesia to make collect calls. None of the wartels will let you. But nyoman was pretty sure the bemo right there was the last one back to padangbai and that I needed to catch it if I wanted to make it to the port that day. I was pretty sure bemos would run fairly late to the port, but after all he’d done, I didn’t argue and got on the bemo back to padang bai (where there was no place to make a collect call) and then onto the ferry back to lombok. Luckily I met a nice guy (who happened to work for a holiday inn in bali) who was coming to lombok for his sister in law’s wedding, so he gave me a ride back to sengiggles so that I didn’t have to go through the difficulty of trying to find a ride there from a small port at 11pm. The next day, my first business was to activate my card, which proved difficult as it was a weekend and the small telkmosel office in sengiggles was closed and I wasn’t entirely sure if the one in maumere, the city down the road, would be open either. I decided to try my luck at the sheraton, the only chain and fancy resort in the area. The woman there was nice, but had no idea how to make a collect call. She tried several times the way she thought it would work to no avail, then we tried the ways I had found on the internet, to no avail until she realized it couldn’t be done from the house phone, but needed to be done from their fancy switchboard phone. But then from there, once I made the collect call, the line at charles schwaab was busy and the operator didn’t understand to wait until there was an available person to talk to. But luckily the next one did. Finally got through and after a long time (thank God it was collect) got the card activated, but then I needed to pick my pin which you do through their computer phone and you have to do all this touchtone typing on the phone, which apparently didn’t work from the sheraton’s fancy switchboard, so I found myself unable to select a pin, which is pretty necessary if you desparately (or even not desparately) want to take money out of a cash point. So I called back and got a very, very nice, in Denver nonetheless, that tried to help me. But he said it had to be through the computer system so I had to type the numbers in with the phone. He stayed on the line with me while I tried several times with no luck. But then he was able to patch me through, all still on a collect call, to anyone’s phone number I had memorized (and trusted)in the hope they could do the pin for me. It was 7pm at night in Colorado, so I thought I would have luck, but was unable to reach any of the people’s phone number’s I had memorized: mom’s cell, parent’s home, bro’s cell, the Hess family. But he told me to leave a message on mom’s phone, which I did in the hope she would get it. Well there was nothing else I could do, so I used the exceedingly nice bathroom in the sheraton and then rented a motorbike. Toured the beautiful coastline of lombok, which is quite dry and almost desertish. In fact if you were to trade palm trees for saguaros, you would think you were in Arizona as you looked inland. Somewhere along the road, got a flat tire (are you sure there’s not cacti out there?) and had to get it fixed. The guy at the vulcanizing shop tried to give me a crappy replacement tube, but I caught that it had a slow leak and demanded a better one. Got it fixed and continued my way along the coast, which was bustling with all the post ramadan parties and then a bit into the hills where I turned around at sunset for the night ride back to sengiggles. On the way out I stopped at a couple of waterfalls, one full of local kids swimming as their parents sang karaoke in the picnic area a bit below. The kids (who were mostly naked went wild with excitement when I stripped down to my briefs and jumped off the waterfall. Sometimes I really get the feeling they are very surprised not only to see a white person but to see what they do and that we’re not all rich fancy camera toting tourists but will get down and dirty and hang out and do what the locals are doing. But I have never been to a county where the people look at you as if you were martian as they do in indonesian and treat you so differently as well. When I asked one of the girls at the port why she was trying to charge me 2 dollars for nasi campur (a rice dish) when I know that the local price is 50 cents and the ferry was trying to charge me 10 bucks when it’s supposed to be 3, she said it’s because I’m white and different. When I got back to Sengiggi, I went to the warnet and found out by email from bro that mom was on vacation in crested butte, had tried several times to set my pin and finally was able to, so I was free to go get money. Went immediately to the first cashpoint I saw and for some reason the english button wasn’t working and I did not want to push a wrong button that ate my card while attempting to translate bahasa indonese, so I moved on to the next one, which was broken. Hmm...one last one to try..and once again, good ole mandiri bank didn’t let me down. Finally had some cash!! Had been somewhat of a nightmare to get that cash, for everyone involved, but finally I had it.