A long, beautiful and indulgent day

This morning I woke at 1.45am to go on a a trip to Mount Batur-one of the volcanoes here, at a height of 1800m. I was picked up in a tour  bus and we were driven one hour north and then led with torches and a guide to the summit of the volcano to watch the sunrise. We were put into small groups and I was with three American girls and a Canadian as we had all started chatting while we waited. There were loads of people doing the hike, but they staggered starting so that groups could go at different paces and not trip up on each other. At this point the sky was completely clear andwe couldn't see anything other than the circle of lit ground for our treading and the stars above us. The terrain was very bumpy, rocky and loose at parts, so we had to be very careful with our footing. Ahead of us we could see a line of torches in the distance ahead of us and as we got nearer to the summit we began to see the silhouette of the climb ahead of us. Unfortunately our guide was not feeling well and kept making us stop, we were worried about her and asked her to stop. She tried to continue, but in the end let us go ahead. By this point there was some vague sign of the sky lightening, so we wanted to rush ahead to get to the top before sunrise. As there were plenty of people doing it we followed the line of lights and found our way perfectly easily without the guide. The speed we went at made it quite a challenge, at time the climbs were such steep steps and we clambered on and on through them. We were all dripping with sweat, but determined. I was starting to fatigue as we finally reached sight of the actual ahead of us, so with a final push made it up there. It is quite amazing how we five had formed a bond and loyalty already, within the couple of hours we had known each other-all supporting each other and ensuring we were alright and together the whole way, when we could have just gone on at our place and made it our own experience.

We were joyful at the top because the view was amazing-we could see the summit of two other volcanoes, surrounded by bouncy cloud with stars above. Mount Aging, the foreground peak was very active and constantly burning thick smoke. Then we watched the sunrise, which was pretty spectacular. It was cold at the top and because of our sweating we really felt it. My hands went numb and I had to get a hot chocolate to warm them up-becauase, of course some locals had taken the chance to make money and had made a hut to brew hot drinks in. We had been given packed breakfasts and as we all started to open food we suddenly had plenty of four legged guests and monkeys were jumping on and around us, scavenging our food. It made the scene more magical, but caused a bit of trouble for some.

After sunrise and enjoying the full 360 view we went back down and could see the landscape we had walked through. On the way we passed another crater, where the volcanoe had once ruptured. It is an active volcano so we also passed rocks that were steaming. As we came further down we passed through onion, chilli, tomaot and cabbage farms.

We found our guide part way down and she seemed a lot perkier. She chatted to me the whole way down, telling me about her family and life on Bali and asking about my job, friends and life at home.

The journey home made me realise how tired I am from the hike and so I have dedicated the rest of the day to relaxing.

I spent the afternoon relaxing at the hostel and then went for a walk to the monkey sanctuary, which is a beautiful forest where many monkeys live. I took a nice walk through it and manages not to get attacked by any of the monkeys. Then I went for a facial and a massage-at bargain prices and after no sleep and lots of exercise I felt I deserved it! The perfect ending to a long and exciting day, I went to bed soon after.Baca lagi