Before I continue, I want to apologize for my overuse of alliterations during blog titles. Tongue twisters truly treat titles terrifically.
Now then, for my second full day in Bali I enjoyed a wide variety of activities. When we were enjoying the view of Mt. Batur the previous day, I had heard one of the Danish guys talking about a sunrise hiking trip up the mountain. As most of my friends and family will tell you, I strongly dislike mountain climbing. If there is a tall obstacle in front of me and there are the two options of going over it or around it, I will invariably choose to go around it. However, as I was by myself trying to be adventurous and lacking proper judgement, climbing a volcano before sunrise sounded like the best idea ever.
The van came to pick up me and 3 others at 2 a.m. and we drove for about an hour out to the trailhead. Breakfast was, of course, a banana pancake and coffee. We met up with our guide/human mountain goat, Komo, who could not have been over 18 years old. Flashlights were distributed and a lot of people were concerned with my apparel, a tank top, shorts, and sneakers. I kindly explained to them that as Indonesia had been successfully boiling, steaming, and frying me for the past 7 months, a little bit of mountain freshness was not going to kill me. We then headed up the trail, chatting, and making two pit stops along the way.
This is roughly all that I saw during the 2 hour climb
We reached the summit at roughly 5:45 a.m. with plenty of time to spare before our 6:30 a.m. appointment with the sun. The temperature up there was much colder than anything I've experienced in Indonesia so far and IT FELT GREAT. Komo and the other repeated their concerns about me being cold and offered me their jackets but I happily told them in Indonesian what roughly translates to- "I've had 7 months of hot in Indonesia. I want cold." Shortly thereafter the sun came up and as it gradually rose I caught some decent pictures. We stayed at the top until about 7:45 a.m. then made our way back down to the van. During the descent down I slipped a bit on some volcanic rock and it occurred to me that I was engaged in a fairly dangerous activity without any medical coverage whatsoever. Oh well. I was finally dropped back off at my homestay in time for yet another banana pancake breakfast.
"Here comes the sun..."
The climb was worth it but my foray into volcano trekking ends here
Looking down the crater valley to the lake by the village
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