Rinjani

Gunung Rinjani, at 3,726 metres, it’s easily Lombok’s highest mountain. The Balinese call it ‘the seat of the Gods’ and the Sasak population of Lombok visit it twice a year to honour the mountain spirit by bringing goats to the lake where they tether their legs together, place them on a bamboo raft and dump them, quite alive, into the centre of the lake. The spirits must be appeased it seems. Rinjani is also an active volcano and erupts intermittently as, inconveniently, active volcanoes are prone to do.
It also afforded me the first chance on this trip to do what I’m travelling for - head for the hills. As I’ve already posted about Senggigi it’s impossible to move down the street without being accosted by touts claiming their pre-eminence in hiking to Rinjani’s summit. Based on a Lonely Planet recommendation - not always a wise move - I went with Rinjani Trekking Club who, not surprisingly, also claimed to be the club with whom to lose your Rinjani virginity.
Day 1 began with a pick-up and transfer to the village of Senaru where our group - 5 of us including a Bavarian couple and another couple, he from Luxembourg and she from Indonesia - was taken through what we could expect in the ensuing couple of days. From Senaru we jumped into the back of a HiAce to the trailhead (1,100m) for registration.
We were underway just after 8, making slow but steady progress through three resting points. This, we were informed, was the easy part. If you one for omens you’d probably have turned back when after lunch we were greeted by the grim sight of what looked like a body being carted down the slopes by porters. We later learned that, fortunately, it wasn’t a fatality but it kept the mind focussed. It wasn’t our first casualty of the day either. Lombok is utterly overrun with mangy, feral mongrels - they’re absolutely everywhere. Well, on our way out our driver inadvertently took one of them out - poor old Fido - and seemed no more put out than as if he’d swatted a mosquito. He did apologise to us however, which was nice.
Part II was a much more challenging part of the day. Bellies full from lunch we had 800m of almost vertical slopes to trek before we reached base camp. We zig-zagged our way through an endless series of twists and turns, the only direction being upward and absolutely no flat sections to catch your breath. What drove me on whenever I flagged was the sight of our porters - 5 of them - lugging our tents, food and water for the night ahead. Not only this but as we stumbled in our Berghaus or Hi-Tec Gore-Tex boots, they sashayed their way uphill in their flip-flops, each of them carrying 30kg on a well balanced bamboo pole on their shoulders. Humbling. My thought process as I stumbled behind them, trying to keep pace, sweat stinging my eyes was ‘You cannot be fucking tired.’ Our guide was Shugah and - get this - he does the trek twice a week in high season and has climbed to the summit more than 250 times and, believe me, has the calves to prove it.
Base camp (more of a Dutch colony actually with Dutch people everywhere) was at 2,639m. You’d imagine the porters would be resting up at this stage but instead they swung into action - pitching tents, lighting fires and preparing dinner. Somehow they managed to create a divine nasi goreng with chicken and the ubiquitous egg (more about the egg in another post sometime) though, truth be told, we’d have eaten roadkill at this stage (sorry Fido but it was a long day).
I’d dearly love to say that I slept restfully that night, the exertions of the day enabling me to shut off quickly, but I didn’t so I won’t. Fuck, it was cold in that tent, but on the bright side, we were due to get a wake up call at 2.30am to begin our final assault on the summit.
Day 2 began with a hot cup of tea - ok, several hot cups of tea - and we were underway by 3am, seemingly the last to leave base camp. The great thing about climbing a godly mountain at this ungodly hour was the absence of heat. In fact, it was cold as hell and about to get much, much colder. We trudged, heads down for a couple of hours but it felt pretty good. Of course we couldn’t see the summit at any stage which was a good thing because then you could convince yourself that it wasn’t all that far away. It was practically one-way traffic on the way up which led - irritatingly - to bottlenecks along the way. One older woman in particular - bless her - was struggling, as much with tying her laces as with the ascent - and, as the song goes, it’s hard to get by when your arse is the size of a small country. So we waited.
We rested one hour from the summit and I was physically unable to stop my teeth chattering what with a gale howling all around. Up to that point progress had been slow but steady but for the last 300m or so it became a hateful slog. We had reached the scree we’d been told about - three steps forward and two steps back - and it was exhausting. With each step on the shitty volcanic ash surface, you stumbled and when you stood still to get a grip again, you slipped backwards, ending up where you’d begun. The profanity count multiplied at this stage but it didn’t matter because with the gale howling in our ears, my curses were carried away on the breeze. This did help in some way though.
But finally at 6am we hauled our tired bodies on to the summit - 3,726m high - and the fatigue and profanities were instantly forgotten. The sun rose at just after 6.20am and was as stunning as you’d expect and in my head this played. With the first shards of light we were able to see the active part of the volcano itself which had hitherto remained shrouded in the night and the lake below it. I looked at the lake, thought about those goats and turned back to enjoy the sunrise.