I underestimated this remarkable mountain.
I thought that my relatively fit physique would allow me to scale this mountain fairly easily and I was lulled into a false sense of security and did not particularly step up on my training regime.
I couldn't be more wrong.
The first day of the 4 day 3 night trek started off pretty easily.
Vast savannah slopes stretching for miles all around us, merging gradually into slightly steeper climbs at certain areas. The sun-kissed landscape was exquisite - with cows lazily grazing, tall grasses gently blowing in the breeze, the occasional mist obscuring the breath taking views and the brooding mountain looming up in the distance.
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| Pretty postcard views |
We were all fresh and on a dizzying high of being out in the great outdoors and we made good progress initially, steadily climbing as we took in the pretty scenery along the way.
Our Supermen
We had a motley crew of two guides and 6 porters accompanying us on the trek - Juki the madcap, lecherous lead guide, his sidekick Sab whom he ribbed incessantly and their supporting team of porters.
These supermen carried our food, sleeping bags, tents, foldable chairs (after all it IS the luxury package) up the mountain in baskets attached to bamboo poles. They skittered from rock to rock effortlessly, in slippers no less, toting the poles like they were simply huge foam dumbbells.
They were always one step ahead of us, making sure that whenever we arrived at each rest point/campsite, everything was readied and waiting for us. They cooked for us, set up our chairs and tents, served us copious amounts of hot ginger tea/kopi/coke/sprite/pocari and gave us massages (okay as for the last one, it was only for us girls!).
Our crew amazed us endlessly with their quiet strength, their creativity in the camp kitchen and their cheeky sense of humour. Juki regaled us with lewd jokes and countless pranks on Sab and we taught him our repertoire of (dirty) words in Mandarin and Singlish.
It was a non stop, riot of fun camaraderie all the way up the mountain.
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| lecherous Juki in his element |
Luxury lunching
As we trekked
through the gently ascending wide open foothills of the mountain, the air
became distinctively cooler and fresher, a stark contrast to the stifling heat
we were all so accustomed to in the city we had left behind.
We were right smack
in the middle of a huge expanse of flat terrain, a rocky trail snaking its way
up the mountain in the distance. Despite the brilliant sunshine on our faces,
mist was billowing all around us, offering an occasional cool respite as we
approached our lunch stop. Ominous looking dark clouds were gathering in the
distance but our guide reassured us that it was a common occurrence and nothing
to worry about.
And then we saw it.
A huge tentage with 6 foldable chairs already set up beneath, was waiting for
us. It was a welcome site for 6 aching bums to sink into.
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| Lunching in shady comfort |
Our crew was all set
up with portable gas canisters, woks and all the ingredients for our lunch and
they were cheerfully whipping up a feast for us. We had fried chicken, mixed
vegetables, keropok and rice, washed down with ginger tea and coke, all savored
under the shady comfort of our tentage.
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| the camp kitchen |
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| the grub |
A Caucasian trekker
curiously wandered over from his group who were miserably huddled under some
nearby trees that offered scant shade and enviously commented that our fried
chicken looked delicious. Needless to say, course it was!
We kinda derived
some sadistic pleasure having fellow trekkers shoot us dirty, green eyed looks
as we lounged around in our foldable chairs at each rest stop over the next
couple of days. The luxury package was well worth every single cent!
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| Green eyed fellow trekker alert! |
And so we relished
our very first lunch of the trek as we watched our crew use their hands to wolf
down their simple meal made out of our leftover ingredients, feeling grateful
for their unreserved good nature and cheerful servitude on this trip. Unanimous
votes to a truly enjoyable and unforgettable lunch in the great outdoors.
Relentless hike
To say that it was laborious heaving our aching bodies and full tummies onwards was an understatement. But we persisted, buoyed by the excitement of more varying scenery our guide promised that we would see along the way.
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| climbing past landscape destroyed by forest fires |
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| gorge-ous views |
The undulating terrain gave way to more challenging rocky outcrops where we needed to exert more effort to negotiate. Our $10 walking sticks came in handy, helping us to balance without putting too much strain on our core muscles.
The trek upwards was relentless, with long stretches of terrain meandering up ahead in the distance. We were all at comparable levels of fitness so no one was particularly left straggling behind. We mostly hiked along in companionable silence, pausing occasionally to take pictures of the landscape.
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local version of goring pisang at one of the rest stops
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Hardy low lying vegetation lined the lower slopes, giving way to a bushy brown carpet that was dotted with patches of green, the vegetation becoming sparser the higher we climbed.
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| tired people kept going by our crazy guides |
Stretching and refuelling were de rigeur at each rest point as we all got ravenous pretty quickly from all our exertions.
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| our view at the rest point |
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| elevation check 2005m |
Juki, with his wide, permanent grin and boundless energy, entertained us incessantly on the uphill climb. He had "Prankster" written in invisible ink on his forehead and his jokes and pranks took the tedium and effort out of the climb.
Almost to base camp!
Finally after an extremely demanding and punishing climb for about an hour and a half, we finally reached the ridge where we would set up camp for the night. But the view more than made up for our sore and tired muscles.
A weather beaten sign proudly declaring the presence of "Puncak Rinjani"greeted us at the top of the arduous climb
It was a clear day with cobalt blue skies above us. The ridge was a flat expanse of barren and exposed soil and rock and a biting wind was blowing across, scattering the clouds and changing the scenery ever so often. We scrabbled for our jackets before whipping out our cameras to immortalise the landscape.
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| elevation check 2657m |
Rare still of the peak ahead of us with no clouds obscuring it
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| panoramic view of the ridge |
Our porters had arrived at base camp way ahead of us so our comfy deck chairs were already assembled in a thoughtful row facing the crater lake, with steaming cups of ginger tea and platefuls of fried banana fritters set down beside them.
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| basking in the welcome sunshine amidst the bone chilling winds |
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| our toilet tent in dazzling sunlight |
How many of us have had a chance to piss to a million dollar view of an active volcano's crater lake and its smoking cone?
And so we spent a phenomenal night camping on the ridge, sipping hot chocolate as we looked out for shooting stars flying through a huge expanse of sky dotted with stars so big and bright, they seemed closer than normal. If not for the bone chilling cold and the prospect of not being able to get up for the summit climb in a couple of hours, I think all of us would have gladly stayed outside to savour the mesmerizing night sky.
Sunrise Summit
It was around 2am when we awoke to piping hot ginger tea and coffee.
All of us were not well rested, having tossed and turned fitfully for the past 5 hours in the freezing cold of the exposed mountain ridge. Alpine starts at unearthly hours are never fun; getting up way too early, groggily piling on more layers of clothes, fumbling around under headlights, unpacking and repacking the backpack you were sure you had already loaded properly the night before and taking the first miserable cold step outside your relatively warm tent.
We started hitting the trail around 230am, muscles protesting vehemently in the pre-dawn blackness.
The initial trek was fairly steep and we passed by many other campsites just further up of ours, the only sounds were our footfalls in the gravelly terrain. After about an hour and a half, the trail became thick with loose rocks piling upon a 45 degree ascent. Our feet started sinking into the loose pumice stone gravel like quick sand. For each step we took upwards, we sometimes slid back three.
I began to really slow down now. Every step was a huge effort, and my frozen muscles were threatening to go on strike, ignoring the urgings of my determined mind. The menacing trail swallowed my every step and drew me into its depths, mocking the huge amount of energy I expended to edge just an inch or two forward in ankle deep volcanic skree.
Our legs burned and our lungs were heaving in the by now much thinner mountain air. Walking sticks pressed into the soft trail for support, we slowed down to a laboured trudge and concentrated on simply putting one foot ahead of the other and gain as much ground as possible with each step. All we could manage at each rest point were a commiserating silence, the kind that is only forged in times of misery.
We had seemed to make such good progress before but in the pitch darkness, I imagined the summit looming even further away than before.
Our headlights illuminated the narrow pathways, with either sides of us promising a certain quick but extremely painful death with a misplaced step.
As we made our way towards the final climb of the summit, the sun began to present itself in orange-yellow streaks through the clouds. All of us took cover behind a rocky outcrop that shielded us from the biting winds and started fumbling for our cameras with fingers that were frozen stiff.
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| surise atop the mountain |
High above the clouds, in the surreal light of dawn, I found myself staring at one of the most spectacular sights I had ever seen.
The panorama was akin to an elaborate Peter Jackson film set than reality. In front of me, the imposing peak sliced through the underbelly of fluffy white clouds.
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| narrow trail leading to the summit |
To my right, the edges of the crater lake had myriad hues of blue, white, pink and brown, its emerald waters glistening in the dawn sunlight and its smoking cone throwing everything into soft focus.
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| Rinjani's smoking crater lake in the first rays of sunlight |
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ethereal beauty revealed just a few minutes later
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To my left, the steep and relentless drop a few hundred meters down as far as I could see, and dotted with a few sorry excuses for shrubs, seemed almost apocalyptic.
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| don't look down now... |
Behind me, Rinjani cast an imposing shadow over all the other mountains in the distance, as if challenging any to better its majesty.
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| Rinjani's shadow |
Through the pain and the exhaustion and the dread of still more of both, I felt so alive. I felt so thankful that my tortured limbs had got me up there, above it all, to be able to gape at the exquisite scenery all around me.
At 530am in the freezing cold and pale light of dawn at about 3500m above all of Lombok but still an hour from the summit, Felice Benuzzi's book "No picnic on Mount Kenya"came to mind.
Just like Benuzzi's tale, although our adventure was nothing compared to his heart stopping encounters, this trek has proved fantastic and we all agreed that we had already accomplished enough for us to be proud of.
