Originally the plan for the last week in Indonesia we were going to go work on someone's urban farm in Denpasar. I think it was going to be something like what I was doing in NZ, although with much less work. Unfortunately Nico got a bit of the travelers stomach bleh, and we decided to continue to hang out here in Ubud. Then kinda on a whim I looked up about climbing Gunung Agung, the highest mountain in Bali.
We'd always been saying it would be cool with either of us to do different things for a bit if that is where the wind takes us, and so since Nico was feeling a little bit better, I went off on my own little adventure for a couple days.
Sorry Mom, I rented a motorbike, but I made it everywhere perfectly safely. In the morning I got the motorbike, bought some snacks, and head off to Pura Besakih – the largest temple in Bali, and also the start point to climb Gunung Agung. All it would take is a few trail markers to make this a perfectly safe mountain to climb on your own, but instead you need to hire a guide to not get lost on the trails around the mountian. I get to the entrance of Pura Besakih and let the haggling begin. You need to buy a pass to get in and that is where I told the guy that I was there to climb the mountain. He starts off at 70 or 80 Euro. For some reason everyone here thinks that you carry tons of Euro on you all the time. I eventually got it down to 600,000 rupiah (about $65) for a guide and accommodation, which seems pretty steep to me but there really is no other option. He took me to my room in a homestay and said to be back at 5 to meet the guide.
I wandered around Pura Besakih for a while. It was another temple... It was cool though that there was some ceremony going on there. So even though there were tons of tourists, there were even more Balinese people there actually using the temples.
I met up with my guide, and he took me to register at the police station, and said he'd meet me at my homestay at 11pm. Yes, that is 11pm! People here are a bit crazy and think that everyone only wants to see the sunrise, no matter what sort of activity you are doing. Ok, I'll go with it, I've never hiked through the night before. I try to get some sleep listening to the dogs barking and little kid crying, and finally get maybe 1 hour before my alarm goes off at 10:30.
10 minutes early he shows up and we are on our way. After about 30 min of hiking we stop at the highest temple on the mountain to pray for good luck. It was kinda cool to be involved in this, cause normally you cant go into the main parts of the temples. With our headlamps on, we continue on through the forest. Basically the trail goes right up the side of the mountain following a ridge. (I didn't know the ridge part until the way down when I could actually see my surroundings). The jungle gave way to a pine forest, and when that began to thin we stop. He tells me that we are 1 hour from the top, but it was only 3:30 am! He actually builds a big ol' fire and we dry out our boots and try to keep warm while it rained off and on. He also pulls out some rice and egg and spicy fish thing for us to eat while waiting there. He got a bit of sleep and I just kinda hunkered down and waited until 5am when we could go on our way again.
He was right on with the hour estimate to the top, and we got there just as it was beginning to get light. Unfortunately it was a bit cloudy, but most of it was along the crater rim about 100m past the top. It was really neat to watch the clouds pour over the mountain and then fall and disappear over the other side (like in this picture to the right). Once it got light out I could see around and how beautiful it was. Pura Besakih is at around 3000ft, and with the top over 10,000 feet, it was crazy being so far above anything else. It is also twice as high as anything else nearby. After about 20 min (before the sun actually even popped up) he was asking if I was ready to head down. I had to tell him a few times, “not quite yet”. I guess for him though he's been up there for sunrise over 100 times, so he just got up there and sat down and waited.
After about 45 minutes and the sun was up I finally was ready to head down. It was kinda weird to be seeing the scenery for the first time on the way down. On the way up, I was actually always on my guides heels and kinda wanting to go faster. But on the way down, he practically ran. It was fun and it sure kept my mind 100% engaged to go down so quickly. I am a bit sad though that I didn't get too much time to look around and enjoy the scenery on the way down either. We did make it all the way back down in just 2.5 hours though. By the end, my quads were so spent and felt like jelly that it was hard to even just walk on flat surfaces.
He dropped me back off in front of Pura Besakih where I remember there being some lawn and trees, and I planned on sleeping for a couple hours before heading back to Ubud. Surprisingly I was still quite awake and so sleeping was not going to happen. Some locals there were looking at me when I was lying there and they invited me to sit with them on their platform. It was cool to be able to chill and not be hassled to buy poscards and buy sarongs like every other white person there. Then by about 10 am I was ready to hop back on the motorbike and go back to Ubud.
Gunung Agung - 2 hours after leaving the summit
Overall, this was a bit more expensive than most other things I've been doing, but sometimes it is well worth it and this is one of those times. I got to learn to ride a motorbike (it had a small engine and was automatic and I probably never went over 30mph) but it was fun. And this is probably the highest elevation gain and loss that I have ever hiked in one day. Surprisingly it was far easier than I thought. Adrenaline is wonderful and it kept me awake and alert all night long. It wasn't until I was back in Ubud and sat down that I became exhausted and passed out for 3 hours, got up for some dinner and Nico kept me up until about 8:30 when I couldn't take it anymore and passed out for the next 11 hours.
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