Day 2
It's time to go for hiking. Ang registered us at the national park office before we went to hike Mount Rinjani by paying some paltry of Rupiahs as the registration fee. There were 9 of us, 5 porters, and Ang & Fifi as our guides. Some of us should unpacked and left our belongings in Sembalun. For example, Yadhi must left his snorkeling gears in the village. It must be hilarious to see the porters' looks when they found out someone packed snorkeling gears to hike a mountain. Yadhi was going to use it at Segara Anak Lake on Mount Rinjani, while the other visitors usually go fishing there. He's actually going to snorkel in Sumbawa, his next destination after Lombok.
There are four base camps on the way to the summit. The last base camp, known as Plawangan Sembalun located at 2600-something meter above the sea level, is the place where most hikers build the tent. The track to the first base is still mild. It's a hilly savanna where you can see the shadow of the clouds on the ground. We called it Teletubbies hills. It is based on a TV-show for babies that has three or four characters who like to play on a hill hugging, dancing, and singing. We could still do singing on the hill. But unlike the characters in Teletubbies, it's quite difficult for us to do hugging and dancing along the way. It's a hill with increasing slopes. There are series of hills in front of us, meanwhile cities of Lombok are on our back.
After the hills, we went through a small not too-dense forest. On the way to the forest, we met some locals carrying some chunck of woods for cooking.
Then, we're heading to the first base camp. It is still located around the hilly savanna. Nevertheless, it doesn't look like a base camp. I imagined a base camp is a place where you can find some food stalls :) I arrived there with Lucky, Herry, Ferry and Fifi. While waiting for the other, we watched a bird do a hunt. The bird was flying in one point on the air while closely looked its prey on the ground. I didn't see its next step when the bird took the prey as I was busy looking for my prey as well inside my backpack: some chocolate bars. When Berti, Ahau, Rudy, Yadhi and Ang arrived, we continued our journey to the second base camp where we'll have our lunch.
The porters had arrived at second base camp before us to prepare the lunch. There were around four other groups having lunch on the base camp which actually is a bridge. Rudy, Yadhi, Ahau, Berti and Lucky took a nap on the bridge while waiting for the lunch prepared.
Meanwhile, I watched our surrounding. Some groups were consist of foreigners eating Indonesian food as their lunch. I also watched Ang making some spoons from a mineral water bottle and chopsticks from a tree branches with his knife. Huahahhaaha they forgot to bring spoons and forks. It was a unique experince eating a bowl of noodle and rice with chopsticks made of tree branches. It's so environmentally friendly (we didn't cut the tree). Most people here ate quitely. I didn't know whether it was because they became too focus on the food (hungry effect) or they wanted to save their energy.
I still could keep my pace with my friends from the second base to the third base. The third base seems as a river with its huge rocks abandoned by its water. However, I had difficulties to hike at the same rhyme with my friends on the way to Plawangan Sembalun from the third base. I didn't feel in a good condition. Still, the journey along this track was enjoyable due to its soothing view. There are a lot of pine trees and edelweiss flower blanket with the white fog. There's a time when I could see a tree standing gracefully on my right side down there apart from itspeers. But as I took a look again, the of the tree had dissapeared as the fog hide it. I felt some drops of water on my head. Is it raining? Nopee...it was due to the fog among the trees. Whether the white substance flying above me is the fog or the cloud? Whatever its is, the overall environment had appeased me in the middle of my fainting breadth, singing stomach, and drumming heart. My stomach was singing due to the instant noodles I had at lunch. I forgot to tell our guides about my sensitive stomach over instant noodle. Thankfully, my mind was still able to sing rejoicing the great scenery around me.
I felt relieve when I can approach Berti, Ahau, Yadhi, and Rudy. However then I turned to be anxious when they continued their walk as I approached them !@#!$ That's the advantage of being in front of the others. You could take a quite long break without any guilty feeling while waiting for your friend with slower pace.
I could see my friends already taking pictures on Plawangan Sembalun. It was only a few steps away from the place I stood. Nevertheless, I had difficulties catching up with them in a flash since I stopped approximately every 5 steps. Finally, I joined my friends at Plawangan Sembalun. It was a magnificent view when you were above the white cloud covering the abyss and Segara Anak Lake. Ok, you could see this can of view from an airplane. But, it's totally a different case when you had to walk to be able to see the view. The undercover summit of Mount Rinjani is on the other side. Undercover?? I'll explain it later on.
The sun was about to leave from our sight. There's no way Rudy and Yadhi would miss the view out of their camera lenses. I knew I'll take longer time compared to them. Hence, I started walking earlier leaving the sunset view. The night was very magnetic with all the stars seemed gathering on the scene. The tent should be made from transparent cover so I could still see the stars.
The summit attack started at 2am and it is estimated to be a 4-hour hike. I had decided not to join the summit attack. My other friends did. So, they would go back down to the base camp around 8 am, then we're going down to Segara Anak Lake. I continued my sleep after seeing my friends leaving to the summit. The lights from the headlamps and the flashlights formed some lines moving on the mountain side. It's tempting to join those lights hiking to the summit. Nahhh..back to the sleeping bag.
I awake at 6am...folding three sleeping bags: mine, Berti and Ahau. After having a breakfast, I just sat on the rock watching Segara Anak Lake from above while waiting for my friends descend from the summit.gather at the scene. The wind also excellent...too excellent that compel me to go inside the tent.
Some people at other tents were preparing breakfast for their friends who went to the summit. I did small talks with some porters and watched people preparing the breakfast while sipping my coffee. It was not only me following the cooking process, but also the monkey from the nearby forest came over. The wind at that time was still tolerable and the sun shone warmly. It was a joyable serene moment at Plawangan Sembalum. Well, not until one of the porters played some songs from his mobile phone loudly. Arghhhhh!!! On the second thought, unlike me, he's used to the serene. It's not a precious thing for him. Fortunately, he didn't play the songs in a long time :)
At 8am, some hikers already arrived at the base camp. Most of them arrived on time were foreigners. Having longer legs make them faster? It is also supported by having more guts to descent the mountain by running. They seemed tired but contempt. Heyy...where were my friends as the time had passed by just like that?
At noon, the cloud covered the lake and the abyss that you can't see nothing beneath it. My friends arrived at noon and too tired to continue our journey to Segara Anak Lake. Hence, after having a break for a while, we went down to the foot mountain. The view is still magnificent. On the way down, we met some other hikers going up. They are from Germany, Australia, Denmark, and else. With the 'else'...I didn't have much energy to do small talk :) We arrived at Teletubbies hills at night. I could feel my sore feet especially when we stopped. Ahau's feet even trembling whenever she stopped walking. However, walking through the savanna with the moon hiding behind the hill was a great one.
We arrived back at Sembalun around midnite. It was nice to see a permanent bathroom again :)
