Never again

At Lombok International Airport we were picked up by Jan, one of the drivers of Rudy Trekker. Rudy Trekker is a local tour operator that offers program packages to climb Gunung Rinjani. It took us four hours to drive to its office in Senaru, but it wasn't a dull ride at all. Palm trees, banana leaves and rice fields filled with cottages, the total opposite of Jakarta. On arrival we got a welcome drink and a short introduction about the trek: the entire northern half of the island is dominated by the magnificent presence of Rinjani, and trekking it would not be a picnic. It namely is the second highest volcano of Indonesia. We would be teamed up with Roelof, a tall, blond Dutchie with a sense of humor, just like Wout. The three of us would be accompanied by guide James, and four porters.

What have we gotten ourselves into? That's what ran through my head as I watched the sun rising over Lombok, revealing the volcano we were about to spend four days scaling. We were brought to our room where we would stay overnight, before starting our trek. After we got settled, we went to the restaurant next door to have a romantic dinner while enjoying the astonishing view over the bottom of Rinjani. We were surrounded by bats and gecko's, it was a good start of our time on Lombok!

Saturday at 6 AM, after a good night of sleep, we walked back to the office to start our biggest adventure so far. The driver dropped us of in Sembalun village at 1150 meters above sea level, where we had to register first. It was going to be a hell of a climb. The initial ascent was challenging but not torturous.
We walked for two hours before having our first break. Here we met another group who left from Rudy's office the same morning. By them we were told that in the meantime eight people had given up already. For us, this was only the beginning. We continued walking for two more hours to the next stop, where our guide and porters would prepare lunch for us. I marveled for the first of what would be many, many times, at how fast the porters managed to move, wearing flip flops. By the time we reached the piece of ground where we stopped for lunch, they were already halfway done cooking and even set up three chairs for us. I never got used to the situation in which other people carry heavy stuff for me without complaining, but during the trek this even got to another level. For your info, all we needed during our 3 night/4 day trek, except for our personal items, was carried by them. We were served a great lunch including a salad, chicken, rice, vegetables and fruits. Everything was very well arranged, the other groups even were jealous of us. It almost made us feel a bit uncomfortabe, but that's what we have paid for, I guess.

We continued heading to Sembalun crater rim. The walking time was three hours, including a prolonged steep climb. We were walking through the clouds and I often watched Wout disappear entirely before my eyes, despite there being only a small distance between us. Eventually, we made it above the clouds. After hours of vertical ascent, looking out at the ocean from over the top of the clouds was the exact motivational push we needed to get through the last hour. We were glad to be provided with walking sticks, not to facilitate balance while walking, but to pull ourselves up the hills. We reached the crater rim just in time to catch the final dip of the sun below the horizon. In just one day, we had ascended to 2639 meters above sea level. We were exhausted but exhilarated as we gazed down beyond the far edge of Lombok. We couldn’t believe we had started the morning on that little speck in the distance.
We were pleasantly surprised by our camping setup, where we didn't just have sleeping bags and decent tents but also sleeping mats to make our beds a bit softer. Still, as soon as the sun set we were freezing, and layered on everything we had brought. We had hesitated over packing so much clothing but were grateful for every stitch of it. I had imagined of all of us bonding over a campfire at night, but in reality we were so frozen we could manage little more than huddling in our tents in the fetal position and wishing for sleep.

At 2.30 AM we were woken up to have a light breakfast before heading to the summit, in the dark. Some groups already left at 1 AM in order to be able to make it to the top before sunrise. James told us that for example Asians in general needed more and longer breaks. The walking time would for us approximately be three hours. The first stage was quite steep. I did not feel well, so we moved slowly.
We moved, at least.

Wout warned me by saying that the climb would only get harder, while I felt a knot forming in my stomach just looking up at the vertical distance we had to cover. Still, while my body gave up already, my mind was determined not to do so. What supported us, was the endless line of head torches behind us. We were surprised by how crowded the trail was. August is peak tourist season, and yet we were still surprised by how many people made time for a few days of torture on their holidays. The second stage was a fairly easy, but a long and therefore tiring trek. By the time we started the last and most difficult stage, we were already climbing for three hours. There were many loose stones, and as we took two steps forward we slipped one step back. This was when things really started to get ugly. That same thought from the day before echoed through my head: what have we gotten ourselves into? Wout gently renamed the mountain to.. well, let's just say he used some words his mom hasn't taught him. Now it was him complaining, and he admitted that if I wouldn't have been with him, he certainly would just have walked back to the campsite. The summit appeared to be close, but with every step we didn't seem to get any closer. When we realized we wouldn't make it before sunrise, we decided to sit on the edge with the two of us.

Watching the beautiful sunrise while trying not to freeze, we found the courage to move on and make it to the summit. So, we started climbing again. The last, let's say, 200 meters at least took us another hour. It was killing, this portion really challenged us to our personal limits, but now we were so close we couldn't give up anymore. We had to take a break after every five steps we took in order to find the energy to take the next five steps. By doing this, we eventually reached the summit. Unbelievable and indescribable what a stunning view we had, and what a personal victory to finally reach the 3726 meters.

A few hours later we came back at the campsite and collapsed face first back into our tent from exhaustion. I can’t really remember the details. Subsequently Roelof informed us that we should be glad we didn't make it to the summit on time. He did, but two downsides he experienced were the fact that it was freezing, and that it was way too busy before sunrise. After lunch we went down to the crater lake, where we would stay the second night. The trail down was very steep and slippery, so we had to be extra careful. I don't mind downhill trekking so much, though the amount of technical precision it took was exhausting. We couldn't really tune out or we would have ended up with a twisted ankle. Wout and I were both happy when we reached the lake in just three hours. Only ten minutes away from our campsite, there were some hot springs. After a day and a half of sweaty hiking and no showers, we were all pretty psyched to get into those hot springs and soak off some of the built up grime. We all changed into our bathing suits and hopped into the water in record time. The locals here cannot really appreciate women in a bikini, so I decided just to hold on my clothes. The point that I only had two outfits with me didn't bother me at all. We had a great time chilling in the hot springs, watching monkeys and trying to communicate with locals. Even there we were popular being white.

The third day we started the trek back up to the opposite side of the crater rim. First we walked along the lake over the slippery stones, where lots of locals were fishing. It made us wonder how the fish got into the crater lake. While we were still puzzling how the fish found their way up to the lake, our guide James solved the mystery. Apparently, the second president of Indonesia once funded a project to bring fish via helicopter, to be dropped into the lake. Over the years, the fish population grew and now plentiful can be caught for food. The rest of the trail to the crater rim was steep up again.

With my music on, I tuned out and just focused step by step on blasting through the final ascent. When we finally reached the crater rim, we could enjoy even more incredible views over the lake before the clouds appeared. Normally groups stay there for the third night, but since we left early and now it was only around noon, we decided to walk to the next stop so that the fourth day we would only have to hike for a few more hours. From here on it was only downhill. While I normally quite enjoy downhill hiking, as I am not out of breath, this was quite brutal. The trail consisted of volcanic stones covered in sand, so it was really slippery. My muscles were so tight and sore from the two prior days of up and down, and so I ended up doing a very attractive robot-walk all the way down to the next stop as my knees did not really want to cooperate with bending. Eventually we walked up to point extra, where the porters set up our tents for the third and last night.

It was much warmer in the jungle, so now we actually were able to sit around a campfire and hang out with the people we met throughout the days.

The last day of the trek, we made ourselves ready to head back down to Senaru, where it all started. We marched through the jungle, while the porters easily ran through it. Crazy people we called them or gila people as we learned in Jakarta. James taught us that we could just call them gila urang. We recognized the word urang from urangutan, which we now know means forest people. Exhaustion does funny things to people. Also, we found out that the people in Indonesia have Dutch words in their dictionary such as 'sandaal', 'koelkast', and 'asbak'. The end was near, as we started hearing engines of motor vehicles. We were never so happy to see a road in our lives. The next thing we knew, we were back down to civilization.

Together with Roelof we ended our trek with a fruit cocktail in the inifinity pool at the lovely restaurant where we had dinner the first night on Lombok. We asked each other whether we would do it ever again. The answer was a no. Why not? Because this was our first positive volcano climb experience, and we are convinced it will not get any better than this.

It might, if one would climb a much higher or maybe a more difficult mountain, but for us this was undoubtedly the limit!