beyond bali - adventure travel magazine - sept2011

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Hike it: Indonesia

86 September/October 2011 www.adventuretravelmagazine.co.uk

climbingMountRinjani

MatthewCromptontakesonIndonesiasseco

ndhighest

volcanothemightyRinjaniontheislandofL

ombok,eastof

Baliinoneofthemostspectacularsettingsh

eseverseen

BeyondBal i:


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Hike it: Indonesia

www.adventuretravelmagazine.co.uk September/October 2011 87

Su smlld of qu

dspo.

Here on the ourth day

o April it was the worst o

lean and hungry times. Mt Rinjani is

the lieblood o this town, a 3,726m

stratovolcano rising like a monster

rom the pancake ats o north Lom-bok, its sole nonagricultural resource

and 75% o its yearly economy. And

with the mountain closed by tor-

rential rains or the past three months,

Senaru had been quietly starving.

Still, there was reason or hope.

Elsewhere in Indonesia, Javanese or

oreign interests oten control the

local tourist trades, and the people

o those communities contented

themselves with scraps. In Senaru,

though, all tourism on the mountain

is organised on a community base.

Guides and porters rom the town all

get work on a rotation system, and

the body that oversees and trains

them the Rinjani Trek Management

Board is a non-prot cooperative

that put its entrance ees wholesale

back into the ecotourism program,

park maintenance and promotion.

Its a unique system, and with the

mountain just reopened or the year, I

was eager to begin my climb o Indo-

nesias second-highest volcanic peak,and see rsthand what this collective

responsibility really meant.

The next morning we set o at

8am with our guide Sam (just Sam)

and our wiry, indeatigable porter,

bareoot and smiling and carry-

ing 35kg tents and cooking pots,

pineapples and bedrolls in twin

bamboo baskets slung on a stout pole

over one shoulder. The path was mud

and roots and mossy hardwoods, the

clouds driting in and out, movingthrough patches o hot sun and some-

times into lightly spitting rain. There

were birds chorusing in the trees, and

when we stopped or lunch cheeky

grey monkeys, the most thieving o all

creatures, appeared, greedily snatch-

ing at the cast-o scraps.

Already our little group was

winded. The rst days walk was

2,040m o ascent spread over only

9km, and above the treeline, trek-

king through a thick cloud, the path

quickly became steep and indistinct,

a scramble up muddy stones ollow-

ing the vague shape o our porter

through the og above us. The ridge-

line was a relie, and as we tracked

southeast to our camp in a shallow

saddle it was 4pm, and the clouds

were just beginning to clear.

At the top o every climb there

comes a payo, a visual compensa-

tion or the hours o burning lungs

and aching quads. Its the Easter egg,

the chocolate in the advent calendar,the uncertain reward; and as the

clouds blew o and the sun appeared,

it was clear that this reward would

be spectacular. First a body o water

deep blue, known as Segara Anak,

the Child o the Sea swam out o

the og, nearly 700m down. Then the

rounded, ash-brown cindercone o

Mt Baru, slightly smoking. The crater

walls, sharp and high, appeared; then

nally Rinjani to the northeast, more

than 1,000m above our already-loty

height, intimidating, severe and

capped by clouds.

The crater was sublime, an empty,

elemental space almost 9km wide. It

was like a cathedral, enormous and

enclosed, a powerul physical pres-

ence to sit in quiet and eel awed by.

Still, the mountain had not always

been a peaceul place. Oh, back

beore 2000, so many robberies on

Rinjani, my trek organiser, Ahmed

Yani, had told me back in the town.

The tourism business was just ght-ing, only a ew people getting all the

money, and everyone else was angry.

Finally, the NZODA [New Zealand

Ofcial Development Assistance

program] came in and showed us how

to share the mountain. That was when

everything changed.

Indeed, Rinjani is now considered

one o the worlds leading examples

o how to do tourism right. The

community won a prestigious World

Legacy Award rom the NationalGeographic Society in 2004 or do-

ing superb work in protecting its

overall natural and cultural heritage,

and visitors rom other Indonesian

islands and abroad regularly travel to

Lombok to study its system. The next

morning, however, I could see that

Rinjani wasnt without its problems.

We descended steeply or two hours

through a patchy orest to the edge

o the lake, picking our way along its

shore until, ording a small stream, we

came upon the lakeside campsite that

in the high season would see nearly

40,000 local Sasak people coming to

bathe in the sacred hot springs. We

Sasak people come down to the hot


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Hike it: Indonesia

t op t ips f ort r avel l ing inIndonesia

1Scams, overcharging and rip-os are unortu-

nately rampant in Indonesia, particularly in Bali.

Prices or accommodation have genuinely risen

in many cases since your guidebooks last printing, but

transportation prices are usually accurate. It pays to be

sceptical and to shop around.

2ATMs typically note whether they disperse cash

in 100,000- or 50,000-rupiah bills. Whenever

possible, take the latter, as the larger notes can

oten be hard to break.

3Indonesia has some o the worlds best divingand snorkeling spots. Superb and easily-acces-

sible locations include the Amed Coast o east

Bali, Lomboks Gili Islands, and Pulau Bunaken just o

the coast o Manado in north Sulawesi.

4A hired motorbike is perhaps the easiest (and

most un) way o seeing the relatively com-

pact islands o Bali and Lombok. Automatic

step-through bikes can be rented throughout Bali or

around 25,000-35,000 rupiah (about 2.50) a day, and

in the town o Senggigi in Lombok or 35,000-40,000

rupiah a day. It saves the hassle o these islands

sketchy public transport networks, but beware o

police checkpoints, where bribes (typically around

50,000 rupiah) are extracted. An International Driving

License (obtained in your home country) is the best

way to avoid having to pay.

5Tasty Indonesian ood: try gado-gado(veg-

etables in peanut sauce), sate(small skewers o

marinated meat cooked over charcoals), and

nasi goreng(a ried rice and egg dish). Check out tuak

(homebrewed rice- or palm-wine), but give arak(the

local version o moonshine) a miss.

The cr at er was sub l ime,an empt y, el ement al

space a l mos t 9km w ide.It w as l ik e a c at hedr al ,enor mous and enc l osed

5

88 September/October 2011 www.adventuretravelmagazine.co.uk

Fine specimen: Matthew

enjoying the 39 hot springs

Caught anything?

A local boy shing in

the Rinjani crater lake


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Hike it: Indonesia


spring to make magic, or healing,

Sam told me, but the damage

done by these pilgrims was

immense, or the campsite was

completely trashed.

Dropping our packs amid the

obscene litter o noodle packages

and plastic bags, rubber sandalsand rusting cans, ood waste and

plastic bottles, we hiked down be-

low a crashing waterall where the

hotsprings owed rom the rock

into our simple stone baths. The

39 water elt delicious ater the

previous days hard climb, and we

spent an hour hopping between

the steaming baths and the cold,

turbulent pool below the alls. Still,

the rubbish was disgusting, and

impossible to ignore. Every two

weeks, we send people to clean,

Junaidi Surahman, the head o

the Trek Management Board, told

me back in Senaru, shaking his

head. But with so many visitors,

what can we do? Cleaning up ater

oreign people is one thing, or the

local people it is another. There is

just not enough money to pay our

porters and guides and to keep

the lake clean.

Indeed, it was a relie to shoul-

der our packs again ater lunchand put the squalor o the camp-

site behind us. We tracked across

the grasses o the mountainside in

the bright sun or an hour beore

beginning a sharp, rocky ascent

700m to the opposite crater rim,

two hours o hard climbing that

let our aces sunburnt and our

legs completely jellied. When

we reached the campsite on the

Sembalun ridge, a TV crew rom

RCTI, one o the Indonesias topstations, was already camped out,

their generator conking away as

they lmed a trekking adventure

program. In Indonesia we say you

havent ofcially been to Lombok

until youve climbed Rinjani, Emri,

the crews creative director, told

me. Its that amous.

The sunset rom the rim was

perect. From 1,000m up we

watched the clouds ar below

us as they lled the valley like

smoke, creeping along the

ground, thick and white and

opaque, running all the way north

to where the sky met the blue o

the ocean. At the leading edge

Wos wg?Teacher, writer, pho-

tographer and part-

time metaphysician,

Matthew Crompton

has at various times

called Cleveland, San

Francisco and Seoulhome; or 2011 hes

abroad in the world

at large. Passionately

devoted to trivia and the search or a reebase orm

o caeine, hell argue at length about the relative

merits o squat toilets and the complete validity o

rice as a breakast ood. Women, zoo animals and

most Marxists fnd him irresistible.

On the Senaru Ridge:

tiny tents, big sky

Matthews (sel-awarded) photo

o the year: clouds pouring on

to the Child o the Sea lake


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Hike it: Indonesia


they lled the green ridges o the

hills ar below with wispy ngers,

ebbing and owing like a sea, until

the last light o the day turned theclouds luminous, a chiaroscuro o

pure light and dark on a monumental

scale. Night ell and I shivered with

the cold. Soon, beneath the bright

stars and moonless night, I crawled

exhausted to my tent and slept.

Sam called us awake at 3am. It

was three hours to the summit or

the sunrise and a ull 1,000m; we

bolted gritty coee and a hand-

ul o biscuits each, then with our

headlamps cutting bouncing circlesthrough the tired night, began the

climb. We mounted the ridgeline

and ollowed it or an hour in the

darkness, until suddenly the real

work the nal approach to the

summit began. It was an end-

lessly steep slope, a scree o ash and

st-sized stones that gave at every

step. It seemed to go on orever.

Time stopped moving. I was gasping,

heaving my legs up and then sliding

back, my entire body aching. But

even when I was pouring with sweat,

my ngers were numb with the cold.

When Sam nally collapsed into

a lee in the rock, saying Finished,

nished, I could hardly believe it.

But it was true: 20 minutes later the

dawn came, laying bare the earth

so ar below the at o Lombok to

the north running to the open sea,and Mt Agung on Bali to the west. It

lasted only minutes beore the clouds

rolled in, snatching the world away,

but it had been enough.

I thought o Ahmed Yani back in

Senaru, o a community trying hard,

together, to manage its most pre-

cious shared resource. What do you

think, Matthew? he had asked me

earnestly. What do we do? How do

we make it work?

And I thought: Ahmed, itsenough. This place is so beautiul,

and youre really trying. Yes, I think its

enough.

As we stumbled down to the

narrow approach, its steepness sur-

real in the at dawn light, one o the

young Dutch guys we summited with

threw back his head and howled,

then plunged at ull speed down

the mountain, leaping orward with

enormous steps.

I waited a beat to consider then

plunged on down the mountain

mysel, a howl bursting rom my l ips.

It was more ying than alling, the

air buoyant all around me, my heavy

body eeling suddenly weightless.

Sam cal l ed us awak e

at 3am. It w as t hr eehour s and a f ul l1,00 0m t o t he s ummitf or t he s unr is e

Cloud nine: looking out on

the Sembalun crater rim

Steamy: the hot springs

below lake Segara Anak,

the Child o the Sea


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beyond bali - adventure travel magazine - sept2011

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