Two of the greatest days in Indonesia...
TUESDAY 20 JUNE
Arrived in Sugaipenuh at about 3am. Thankfully, managed to wake the land lady of a youth hostel
and stayed there for a measly 40 pence each!
The reason for going to Sungaipenuh was of course so that we could climb Gunung Kerinci - the
highest mountain in Indonesia outside of Irian Jaya
and the highest volcano anywhere in the country. The plan was to go up and come down on the same
day. And it was possible to do that
if one started straight after Fajar. But we thought it'd take much less time and so it was after
7am when we eventually got up.
As we'd planned on leaving for Bakaheuni in the evening we went to book our tickets but were told
that the next bus was on Thursday! So we decided that
we'd climb Kerinci over two days, camping near the top and then ascending for the sunrise the next
morning before coming down to the village of a guy we met
in Sungaipenuh.
Set off from the base of the mountain at about 4pm. (The foot of the mountain was covered in vast
tea plantations, the first that Mustafa has seen. I of course
have seen plenty in Sylhet.) The first couple of hours of the climb , to Shelter I, were
relatively gentle walks up through the jungle. Prayed Asr at Shelter I.
The next two hours, to Shelter II, were steeper and more slippery. It was also quite dark by then
- the Sun went down at about 6pm - but because we'd been
walking continously our eyes managed to adjust enough so that we could save our batteries!
Arrived at Shelter II, 2750 metres, at about 8pm. After Maghrib and Isha we were ready for sleep.
Well, almost - I had to go for a dump very unceremenously!
(Fortunately, Mustafa didn't take a photo!) It was the funniest of situations and I'm sure you'll
be happier if I spare you the details!
We were ready for sleep but it was too cold! And, of course, we had no tent, or any other kind of
shelter for that matter, and only one sleeping bag. (I sent mine
back to England, remember!) Mustafa has two big plastic bags, which we could've used as bed
linings, but he left them in Sugaipenuh! We were as unprepared as
one could get! Adding to that, Shelter II wasn't much of a shelter. In fact, it was nothing more
than just a clearing and an exposed one at that! We thought about
moving to the forest and just sitting there all night.
We were thinking of just opening up the sleeping bag and using it as a duvet over both of us. But
it was far too cold for that. No, we both had to fit inside it
while it was zipped up! I got in first and then Mustafa tried to follow. But he could only half
zip the bag. I was quite warm, though very uncomfortable,
but Mustafa was both cold and uncomfortable. I was worried about him catching pneumonia or
something so we tried another method to fit two in to one.
This time, Mustafa got in first and I closed the bag. I then tried to force myself in but could
only get myself 2-thirds in. But it was very very tight to say the least
and very uncomfortable so we settled for opening the bag and using it as a duvet.
Of course, it was far too cold to sleep. All the time we were asking ourselves "Why? Why? Why?"
Why? 'Cos it's a fantastic experience to look back on
even though you probably think of yourself a fool at the time!
WEDNESDAY JUNE 21
This was the most intensive day of this entire tour and arguably the best! The day lasted the full
24 hours without any rest bite at all. It started with us freezing
our mits off (but of course we didn't have any mits nor warm clothing of any kind, just wore
several layers of t-shirts and shirts.), tired like hell, having only
slept four hours each in the previous two nights, but not being able to sleep because of the cold,
and shit-scared of being attacked by animals! It sure made us
feel very small. It's funny but at every opportunity we were saying Alhamdulillah, Inshallah,
Mashallah, Subhanallah, Asthagfirullah, etc.
It was warmer when the Sun came up, so we managed to sleep some, maybe even more than an hour! It
was 7:40am by the time we started on the last
leg to the summit.
Though it took us only two and a half hours to reach the top, it felt like ages. Of course it did!
The lack of sleep and food (we had food but just lost our apetite)
and minimal water I'm sure had something to do with it. But it's amazing what one's body can do
when it has to. I'm sure we could've climbed the mountain
all over again if we really had to!
The views from the top made the whole effort well worth it. They were breathtakingly fantastic!
Because we reached the summit quite early in the morning it
was very clear at the top. Well, there were clouds below us but they also looked fantastic! It was
a great feeling to be so high above the clouds!
At the top we could smell sulphur dioxide, which Mustafa initially thought was the smell of
somebody's defication! But of course it wasn't for very few people
climb Kerinci - we were the only ones doing so this day. The gas was coming from the bottom of the
crater. It was an active volcano, afterall. This was my
very first volcano and what a site, especially as neither of us knew that it was a volcano, never
mind thinking it was active! Seeing the smoke come up the steep
walls of the crater was an impressive site.
When going up, Mustafa puzzled "sometimes I aks myself why I ever do this!". It is for these
fantastic moments at the top, my friend! These fantastic sights of
God's creation.
Unfortunately, we couldn't enjoy the views for long as the smoke was comig up in ever increasing
volume and would've engulfed us had we not left pretty quickly.
You'd think the descent would be much easier and quicker than the climb, wouldn't you? But not
with us! Firstly, near the top there was a lot of scree and stuff
so we had to be really careful in coming down.
Then we came to a point where the path split in to two. Mustafa wanted to go right; I wanted to go
left. I was more convincing so we started going left.
But this path didn't seem familiar at all so we convinced ourselves that it was the other way. So
we followed the other path for a while. But this seemed even
less familiar. We could see litter on the left path so returned to that. It took us over half an
hour to decide on the eventual direction. I'm glad that we really
talked it over for we did take the right (meaning correct!) path. Needless to say we didn't have a
map. Well, we had a map of Sumatera but that wasn't
much help, strangely enough!
It took as much time to get down from the summit to Shelter II as it took to go up. (Incidently,
we had to take the same route down as up for any other
route would've needed specialist equipments.) Though we had plenty of food they all seemed to be
de-hydrated and we were fast running out of water! We had
to conserve the water. Forced down some of the food - buiscuits, buns and nuts - with minimal
water.
On Tuesday, going up from Shelter I to Shelter II took just an hour and a quarter. Given that we
were dead tired we'd expected it take the same to go down the
same path. But after about an hour and 45 minutes we still hadn't arrived at Shelter I. It was
nearly 4pm now. We seemed to remember taking a narrow path from
Shelter I on Tuesday to get to the main path. Thought that we'd missed this path and were headed
to a different part of the jungle.
We decided to cut our losses and started back-tracking. We back-tracked all the all way to Shelter
II. (We were gonna leave a note there.) We thought we were
lost, were out of water (saved the last few drops for the most serious of emergencies) and knew
that Kerinci is seldom climbed. All sorts of scary stuff were
going through our minds. The adrenaline level took a massive boost and we were in Shelter II in no
time.
There was a path going west from Shelter II, following which, we were told on Tuesday at the park
entrance, would lead to a spring. We started heading for the water but
then we saw another climber (an English guy who was with a (very expensive) guide). And guess
where they'd pitched their tent? In Shelter II! The real Shelter II! This
was bigger, flatter, and more protected from the elements than what we though was Shelter II. It
was also on paved ground. We saw the Shelter II sign and assumed it
was where we stayed. There were no directions given to the real Shelter II and it was too dark to
go exploring!
The guide had gone down to collect water. He gave us a bottle of their water and I was even
tempted to ask for some of the rice and chilli that the English guy
was munching away at! The water was a godsend! Water is really the stuff of life and yet we take
itr for granted in our daily lives.
We asked about the way down to Shelter II. The guide didn't tell us anything that we didn't
already know. We couldn't figure out where we'd gone wrong but
set off the same way anwyay. It was now 5pm. We'd long given up the idea of visiting that guy's
villiage!
When going down again, it dawned on us that the previous time we may have been going down the
right path but it was taking us far longer than we'd expecetd
because we were so tired. We thought that we might've seriously underestimated the degree of our
tiredness. This time we persevered no matter what and
eventually reached the elusive Shelter I. "It's the Gap, it's the Gap" I cried out! Mustafa joked
about blowing the place up!
It was now past Sunset and we weren't out of the woods (literally too!) yet. We were lower down
than we were at the same point ( in time) on Tuesday
so needed the flaslights. Followed the path down, heaving great sighs of relief everytime we'd go
past a familair landmark.
Then we came to a hut we'd never seen before. It was now pictch dark, approaching 9pm. There was
moon light outside but not in the thick jungle. We were lost.
The new bottle of water was also fast running out. We were starting to worry again but this time
less so as we knew that there were other people on mountain
so that all we'd have to do is back-track to Shelter I and wait for the others to come down the
next day. But that wasn't the greatest option to say the least,
especially as we'd miss the bus to Bakaheuni.
We decided to continue forward from the hut anyway, thinking that we might've seen it on the way
up but couldn't remember. We continued for a while but the
path seemed to get less and less familiar. We didn't wanna get lost further in to the jungle so
resigned ourselves to spending another night on the mountian. Started
heading back to the hut but ended up at a different one! But from this one we could see the
entrance gate to the park! Hoooraaayyyyyyyyyy!!!
Another kilometre and we hit the road where we were dropped off on Tuesday by some very nice park
rangers who were so happy to meet Muslim
travellers. Five km further on we hit the tiny town of Kerinci. It was 10:45pm or so by then. No
buses nor taxis to Sungaipenuh could be found. Even no
luck with hitching. So we stayed in Kerinci.
It took us 6 hours to get up but 12 to get down! It was the most intensive couple of days. We'd
walked some 50kms. Walking that in the best of conditions is difficult
enough but doing so having not slept properly for three consecutive nights (only 10 in total), not
eaten properly either, lacking in water and having done a
gruelling 70km cycle ride only 3 days earlier was quite a challenge!
Looking back, it was the most fantastic experience ever and one I will remember for a long time.
It wasn't the highest mountain that I'd climbed but it was
definitely the best!
Mounatain climbing is really the dogs bollocks! And climbing with a group of friends is even
better. While climbing I was often thinking how much greater
it would've been had so and so been there. And so, Inshallah, next summer Mustafa and I will
organising an expedition to the highest mountain in Europe,
Mont. Blanc.
We will need at least 8 people for the expedition. The plan is to take at least two cars from
London to Chamonix. Don't worry, this won't be as impromptu
as the one above! It will be meticulously planned. Well, as meticulously as I can organize
anything!
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