The summit of Batur stands at 1717m and is a 2 hour trek from where we were dropped off. Together with our guide we set off at 4am which would give us enough time to reach the top for the 6:20am sunrise.
The route up to mountain itself was pretty straight forward but in some spots it was a little hard work, especially the last 30 minutes or so when we were nearing the top. We definitely worked up a good sweat. Our guide informed up that he does this at least twice every week and during the busy season he does it 4 times a week! The local teenage boys who sell you drinks at the top, do this route every single day!!!
The guides made sure to hold onto the girls for most of the way up and we took a few breathers along the way which we were all happy to see. For me personally it was the first bit of cardio that I’ve done in nearly 9 weeks due to the injury I sustained back in April, so I found it a little bit taxing near the end. Florence and Aileen were well able for it as well and they enjoyed the challenge big time.
At about 6am we finally reached the top and had about 20 minutes to wait until sunrise.
There were quite a few other tour groups at the top already when we arrived so we got ourselves a good spot to watch the sunrise which surly arrived at 6:21am!
I tried to get creative with the limited time available so we tried out the following few shots….
However my favourite photo of the day was this one which was kindly taking by Miss Aileen O Donnell who has an untapped talent she reckons for taking photographs
As part of the tour, we were served a simple breakfast after sunrise which consisted of banana sandwiches and hard boiled eggs which were cooked from the steam of the volcano….
I forgot to mention that the volcano itself is an active one, which has erupted numerous times over the past 100 years with the most recent explosion been in 2000.
After stuffing the eggs down my neck the guide then brought us to the crater and gave us a brief history of the volcano which was in very hard to understand broken English. Still though we gained enough info the get the bones of what he was saying so that was good enough.
The trek back down was a very steep decline at first until we reached an easily route, which would be a very easy walk back the rest of the way. It only took an hour on the way down and much of that time was consumed on the initial decent as it was very awkward footing. Good trekking shoes came in handy for this tour for sure!
When we reached the bottom we all felt totally shattered. Apart from the actual trek we all having been sleeping in what you would call a regular sleep pattern and therefore that combined with the 2:30am start, it really did flake us out.
Looking back at the volcano from below it re ally did look a huge beast in fairness. And since it was our first trek of this trip, hopefully it will stand to us for future treks along the way. The tour cost just $25 per person which was originally priced at $35, but with a bit of haggling we knocked a tenner off it. Excellent value and yet another example of how cheap it is over here.
We got back to our room around 11:30am that morning and just crashed out for a few hours. But before long we were up and on the net getting info for our trip to the Gili Trawangan island off the coast of Lombok. We booked our boat transfer there from Bali and so we are off to the stunning tropical islands Sunday morning with an open return ticket back to Bali! The next update will be from Gili so catch ye all then
Ciao!
