11th October
Yesterday I had a trip to the Mount Rinjani national park.
Mount Rinjani is Lombok's only volcano and with a peak of 3726 m it is a tough but popular hike. I would love to do it, but I don't think I have the right footwear for it and the trips are quite pricey as it takes 3 - 4 days trekking through the jungle and camping.
Water from the mountain feeds two of the most impressive waterfalls - Sendang Gile and Tiu Kelep, the one in the picture above.
Heri arranged for a driver for me to drive to the national park in Senaru, about an hour or so away from the hostel. The driver was Ivan, who I chatted with on the way.
We went into the park which was beautiful and parts of it felt like we were walking through a scene from Jurassic park!.....my photos don't do it justice.
There were monkeys in the park, which can be aggressive. The secret is to not make eye contact apparently, and to not show your teeth, as they do this as a warning and a sign they are about to attack!
These ones didn't seem too bad.
You come to Sendang Gile waterfall first which means 'crazy tiger'. The story goes that a Prince was chased by a tiger & hid under the waterfall to escape.
On the way to the next waterfall, Ivan got chatting with a group of students - eight girls from University, studying agriculture - I think he was slightly on the pull !
We tagged along with them.......or them with us and it made the day quite fun, them being the same age roughly as Eve, it was like having eight daughters with me. Even though I had no idea what they were saying I could feed off their laughter and young energy, and they were happy to include me on our walk over the rocks and in the river, saying 'come on miss, join us!'
They shared their snacks with us - some homemade stuff a bit like Japanese rice crackers - and melon.
Ivan said this was because he was talking to them and giving them advice - 'you give something - you get something back.' ..............I don't think they really needed his advice to be honest......he was kind of playing the 'big man' being older at the grand old age of 30, but he meant well.
They were very sweet and we sat with them at the waterfall. They were happy to sit in the water fully clothed - it was funny.
I wanted to go close to the waterfall and I had my bikini on, but I felt a little embarrassed to get completely undressed so I kept my shorts on (even though other westerners were). The power from the water was immense and the spray was really refreshing.
We said goodbye and Ivan went off to pray while I went to have lunch at the restaurant where he had parked the car. This was restaurant was posh & expensive by my standards but the bill only came to £6.50.
No comments:
Post a Comment