LOMBOK: Kuta Lombok and Senggigi

In September 2014 I had a very special  surprise: my sister and her boyfriend came to Indonesia to visit me and to travel together! It was the most touristic travel that I did in Indonesia but it was with perfect company and it was very nice to relax a bit. 

We met in Jakarta's International Airport and we flew to Lombok.

Lombok is an island situated in the south of Indonesia between Bali and Sumbawa's islands. It is a tourist island but not too much as a Bali is.  The beaches are some of the best in Indonesia and also has a wonderful landscape with ricefields and mountains in the coast.

When we arrived to Lombok's Airport, we took a taxi to go to Kuta Lombok, our first destination. Kuta Lombok is a city in the south of Lombok and is more quiet than Kuta in Bali. Kuta has amazing white-sand beaches and also it has the best surfing in the world (as a lot of tourist/surfing guides say), but we didn't try it. 

In Kuta we enjoyed our meeting drinking beer!! It is not an indonesian culture, but beer was everywhere there! 

The prices are a little bit more expensive than in Jawa because of the tourism and the transportation (Lombok is smaller than Jawa, then it doesn't have the same resources and the same easily public transportation. Then you have to pay that difference and services). 

You can enjoy eating fresh fish in a lot of restaurants. It was amazing and delicious! Also we stayed in a wonderful hostel: Yuli's Homestay. I totally recommend it to you. The staff are very helpful, they have swimmingpool, motorcycles-rent service,... but the most amazing is the breakfast!! WOW! And it is included in the price (that depends the season it is different). 

We visited some beaches like Mawun beach, Aan beach, and some others that I have forgotten the names. It was really amazing! 

After those four days in Kuta, we decided to take a car with driver to move to Senggigi (a city situated in a west-north coast of Lombok).

We wanted to do Rinjani's trekking (volcano in north of Lombok near Senggigi), but we had time also to enjoy Senggigi and our hostel there: Batu Bolong Cottages, absolutely perfect! It is situated on the road to Senggigi city center and it is perfect if you are looking for relax and not too much party -like in the city center-. This hostel is on the beach (at one side of the road there are the rooms and in the other side and almost inside the beach there is the swimmingpool and the restaurant). 

Just a few meters walking on the beach, there is a Hindu Temple (the entrance is free, but you can not go into the whole if you are not going to pray). But it has a special views of sunset from there. 

After spending two days in Senggigi we decided to venture in Rinjani's Trekking of two days and one night!

Bromo experience!

Bromo... what a crazy trip!!

The day after Merapi we bought a tourist pack to visit Volcano Bromo, in east Java. This volcano horribly erupted twice causing the top of the mountain to have a large crater and a vast sand sea around it about 200 m deep approximately. The crater was formerly the vast sand sea then some new hills gradually came up forming seven new mountains. Of those seven mountains, Mt. Bromo is the most active volcano erupting many times and forming new crater.

Before we visited Bromo, we went to another mountain called Mt. Penanjakan (2.706 m.a.s.l) to see the sunrise. It was very nice and we could see Mount Semeru (the highest mountain in east java with around 3.676 m.a.s.l) and other volcanos which are inside the National Park.

The views were amazing, really but personally, I will not recommend you to do it. If you want to visit it, you should go without tourist agency (as I always say and prefer), taking public transport, eating in traditional places ("warungs" in the street) and talking with local people who are not involved in a tourist context.

I have to explain that it was my first bad experience travelling in Indonesia because of the people from the tourist agency who only see that you are "white" and their eyes change into  dollar signs ($_$).

Other thing to bear in mind is the season to visit Bromo.

Of course, rainy season is not recommended because, as I said before, there is a desert around the volcano. But what I mean is that do not visit Bromo in Idul Fitri (Festivity after Ramadhan) and neither in July and August because it will be full of people.

The place, in my opinion, doesn't look natural. Someone built a stairs to go up the volcano in 10 minutes (it is good for old people or disabled people... but to go there, for them is not easy because of the sand... then, we have the same problem with or without stairs). And some people offer to rent and ride a horse to not walk 15 minutes from the place where the jeeps stop until the foot of volcano (where the stairs start). It makes a lot of dust, whick makes it, with the sulfur smell, very difficult to breathe. 

What is the best thing of that trip?

Well, we enjoyed a lot making jokes all the time, we ate a lot of chocolate waffles (the best waffles I've ever eaten) and I saw the biggest crater I've ever seen!!

After this trip, our ways separated. Felix and Anastasia went to Bali to continue enjoying their holidays, and I went back to Salatiga to continue with my voluntary service. 

Merapi!

The day after the "Temples route" in Jogjakarta, we decided to climb Merapi Volcano, situated on the border of Central Java and Jogjakarta regency. Merapi  (2930 masl) is the most active volcano in Indonesia and the most dangerous because of its proximity to the big city Jogjakarta. 
In bahasa indonesia "merah" means "red" and "api" means "fire". Then, I can say I climbed "Redfire Volcano"!!

Sunset from New Selo

From Jogjakarta we took a bus to Magelan and we stopped half-way there to take an ankota (small bus) to Selo or New Selo (the village on Merapi's foot).

We had the contact of one friend of my friend from Borobudur because to climb Merapi you need a guide.  We met him in New Selo and we went together to his house sharing time with his family, talking about their experiences when Merapi erupted in 2010 and also a few months ago... 

At 12 in the night we started climbing Merapi and we arrived at the top around 4:30 am to see the sunrise. 

From the top of Merapi. In the left side, Mount Merbabu

At the first moment I thought "OK, This is really hard, Mariate... but maybe only the first ten minutes... You can do it!!" After one hour the way was a little bit better and then, suddenly, it started to get worse and worse.. The last hour I was climbing like a wall full of sand, full of small stones and volcanic rocks (where if you don't want to fall down it's better not to catch of them) that easily break.

I made one step and I went back more than a half of that step that I already did. Crazy, right?

But finally, we made it and it was really worthwhile. 

Behind me, the crater

Here comes the sun...

I was very tirded and I didn't take many pictures but you can imagine the views:

Imagine you are on the top of a volcano, behind you there is the crater giving out a lot of smoke, a few meters under you there are a lot of clouds, onn your left side you find the top of Mount Merbabu and in front of you the sunrise and the sun! 

After enjoying those views, eating some cookies and  taking off all the warm clothes that we were wearing going up because of cold temperatures, we went down and it was really funny! How can it be possible that the thing that a half an hour before was scaring you, after that time was funny? I'll explain it to you: we went down doing like sand-board but without a board. I was floating!! 

Just we arrived down, we took a car and we went to the terminal in Muntilan to take the bus back to Jogjakarta. 

In our hostel I died, completly. I slept like an angel! But the day after... I couldn't get down from the bunk bed! I had pain in all my body after Merapi! 

Merapi, me and the sun