Sengiggi & Senaru, Lombok

We arrived in Lombok yesterday morning flowing a short boat ride from Gili T. The shuttle bus from the port at Lombok to Sengiggi took a little longer than planned so we didn’t arrive there until 3pm, although this wasn't really an issue as there wasn't too much to do there anyway. Whilst waiting for our shuttle bus, one guy managed to talk us into booking a trek up Mt Rinjani including an overnight camp on the crater rim. Mt Rinjani is Indonesia’s second tallest volcano at 3726m tall. Before coming to Lombok, we'd both agreed against doing the trek since the whole purpose of visiting Lombok is to relax and wind down on its many calm white sand beaches. The Mt Rinjani trek is also an expensive one however we were offered a really good price. Ever the adventurer, you could see Jess was keen and after some persuasive discussion we decided to go for it. A very sudden change of plan and a complete contrast to what we had in mind. Perhaps our decision was a little spontaneous without considering all the logistics, but this will certainly be an adventure. After signing up, we then read countless blogs about the trek being rather difficult frequently referring to a 6 week training plan in the run up to the trek and clearly far more technically difficult than we'd anticipated, so who knows what we are really getting ourselves into.

As part of the tour, we had to travel to Senaru (an area closer to the volcano) a day before the trek began. We arrived in a home stay accommodation as part of the package which was very basic but it would do the job for one night. Senaru as an area was really pretty and our accommodation looked over a valley of jungles, fields and rice terraces. The driver literally just dropped us off at the accommodation so we were left waiting around for a little bit, unsure what to do. The booking agency had told us we could spend the afternoon seeing two waterfalls with a guide, so we enquired about this with the homestay accommodation. Unfortunately we then discovered they had not been informed about this. Not the best organisation from the tour agency but not to worry. Eventually we had a guide who took us to the two waterfalls. Great scenery on our walk and the waterfalls were beautiful, a real sight although not the type you could swim under. After dinner we had a briefing regarding the upcoming trek and let’s just say the difficulty wasn’t sugar coated. We then called it a night nice and early.Read more