Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Trekking Gunung Rinjani

From Bali, I took the slow 4 hour ferry to Lombok, an island east of Bali. I stayed in a pretty little beachside town called Senggigi. The next morning, I started a 3 day, 2 night trek on Gunung Rinjani, a 3700 meter high volcano. Inside of the volcano, there is a crater lake with another volcano inside. It really is gorgeous. As for the climb, there's a reason both trek and camp are four letter words. It is an intense climb, and people die every year attempting it. On the second night, the guide decided to tell us a story about a girl on one of his tours that lost her footing and fell to her death while her boyfriend looked on unable to catch her. I suspect this was a ploy to convince me to hold his hand the whole way down the volcano the next day.

I met some great people on the climb- an Aussie girl, a Dutch guy and an English guy. Our guide, a Hindu man, started to talk about reincarnation, and in an attempt to compliment the Aussie girl, he told her that she would be reincarnated as a man, since she was such a good climber. Compliment fail.

All in all, the trek was similar to law school- something I'm glad I did, but have no desire to repeat. There were some great parts and some brutal parts. There were annoyances- like a still burning brush fire on the way down- but nothing was nearly as annoying as HLS during the 2008 presidential campaign season.

I'm now on the Gilli Islands, which are between Lombok and Bali. I'm on the biggest island, Gilli T. It is very charming with white beaches and horse drawn carts instead of cars or motorcycles. I'm going diving tomorrow.

I've posted a ton of pictures!

Bali: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.880347888635.2353770.2407552&l=c2d2d188ff&type=1

Diving in Tulamben, Bali: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.880395992235.2353798.2407552&l=ab85738210&type=1

Diving in Padang Bay, Bali: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.882188495045.2354547.2407552&l=9883f87a19&type=1

The trek: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.882116075175.2354519.2407552&l=4f5042ad2f&type=1

1 comment:

  1. hahaha you crack me up! - "There were annoyances- like a still burning brush fire on the way down- but nothing was nearly as annoying as HLS during the 2008 presidential campaign season."

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