Epic Trekking FAIL!!

Goodbye to the Gili's and Silver, I'm in Lombok now, and it's as beautiful as I imagined.

I've had the pleasure of seeing much of the island from the back of a motorbike courtesy of Sometimes (he still won't tell me his real name) who organised a trekking trip for me and delivered me to Senaru from where the trekking up Mount Rinjani takes place.

NB, for those immediately concerned when I mention the motorbike, it's THE mode of transport out here. I think I've mentioned before that people out here grow up, live and breathe on bikes. 3 hours either way between Senggigi and Senaru, however, is a bit much for a non-pro backseat rider....my ass is killing me!!

Many of the places we rode through never see tourists, I think most of the people arriving to trek Rinjani arrive by a different route, or in a coach with blackout windows......rich people *spit*....and so the reaction from the villagers was quite funny. Some people just stopped and watched open-mouthed as we drove past, kids were waving and shouting, and whenever we had to stop for a bemo or an errant cow in the road people on neighbouring bikes shouted hello and asked me my name and where I was from.

That was about where the joy ended......

When you ask any locals about the trekking they're totally blase about it:

'Is it difficult?'

'Nah *shrug* easy, *nod*'

'OK, 2 days, one night to see the lake?'

'yes'

'Does it get very cold?'

'Nah' *shrug* 'you need to rent warm jacket?'

'Uh.....yeah?'

When I got there I found I was actually booked for 3 days and 2 nights....hokayee. You have to do 2 nights to see the lake. Cool, I have time. So I stayed overnight in Senaru and prepared for some exercise the next day.

I woke with a sense of foreboding, it seems I have keen intuition! For a start, I wasn't prepared with the right equipment for trekking. Sure, I'd rented the warm jacket, but my bag was stupid, shoulder-slung non-waterproof stupidness. I should have had a backpack, but I couldn't heft my 35 litre up there.

Anywhoo, off I trot with my stupid bag stuffed with a couple of changes of clothes, and I meet my trekking buddies, a couple by the names of Tina and Gary (also from London). We meet our porter Dali, these guys are amazing, they go up and down the mountain every day with 2 baskets attached to a pole slung over their shoulder. The baskets contain all the food and water we need for 3 days, plus tents and sleeping bags. They do all that in flip flops, that is until the really steep part when some of them take off the flip flops and go barefoot!

For the first half an hour I thought 'Oooh, not so bad, maybe I'm fitter than I thought' (my did that come back to haunt me), and then we reached Rinjani National park. Oh...ok....so this is the beginning? Humm.

Even then....it was ok for the first couple of hours. We were in the rainforest and so protected from the sun, and it was much cooler on the mountain than it was in Senggigi.

However, it seems I'm not built for endurance. By the time we stopped for lunch I was seriously flagging. It was a long lunchbreak whiich I was grateful for, despite it taking longer than it really should have. Another porter had joined us, a young guy who called himself Musliman.....whether thats real or not I have no idea. He said he was 18 but we weren't convinced, I know the local people look deceptively young, but he can't have been much older than 16. Anywhoo, the idea is that one of the guys goes ahead and starts cooking lunch so that it's ready for when the trekkers get there (just saying that makes me cringe, it's like they're slaves), Musliman went ahead, but seemingly had not a clue what to do and so nothing had happened by the time we got there. I suspect a small organisational error too, I think Dali had all the food!

Somewhat refreshed after lunch and a break we set off on the next section of the trek, Dali and Musliman stayed behind to dry out the tents that were a little damp from the last trek. After about half an hour, at my insistence, the others pulled off as they were faster than me, so I was left completely to my own devices, luckily there was only one route up, so even someone with an internal compass as off-kilter as mine couldn't go too far wrong. But the terrain was becoming hardgoing, climbing up over tree roots etc was doing my legs in.

And then the heavens opened. They don't call it a rainforest for nuffink.

So I was stuck alone in the middle of a 2.5km stretch in the pissing rain with no shelter and not much choice other than to press on. Even if my waterproof jacket had been effective it wouldn't have saved me from this onslaught. Apart from which, it still wasn't cold, so you're sweating inside the jacket too. The trail became a waterfall and so picking the footing became fun. At first I attempted to keep my feet out of the water, but it soon became pointless and I started sloshing miserably through puddles and praying for a glimpse of POS III, the next rest point, through my bleary glasses.

Those 3 hours may have been among the most miserable of my entire life so far. It made for a lovely picture afterwards though.

Finally I arrived at POS III and found Gary and Tina who said they'd only been there 15 minutes (kindness??) and who were also soaked to the bone. The porters turned up about ten minutes later and lit a fire for a cup of tea.....laaarvely. We all started toasting our socks and shoes around the fire, we hung our socks on sticks and held them over the it. When Dali tried to put the kettle on the fire all our socks were in his way and he cried:

'TOO MANY SOCK-SATAY!!'

It makes me pee myself laughing even now when I think of it, the poor exasperated man fighting his way through wet socks to the fire. Ahh, I'm laughing again now...love it. I managed to melt the side of one of my shoes though....not so funny! I saved it before it was unsalvageable though....huzzah!! Silver lining, savour the silver lining.

Sorry....I keep looking at sock-satay and giggling. I need to write more so it disappears from the screen!

By now I was getting pretty chilly, it was ok when we were walking as we generated our own heat, but when we stopped in our soaking wet clothes it was cold. The worst thing was not having the prospect of anything dry and warm to change into. We had to hope that when we got to the campsite they could build a fire for us to dry our clothes over.

The last section was a trial, it got very steep, and the ground was very loose. I made a comment (loud complaint?) about how steep it was and Dali turned around and said:

'tomorrow very steep

'Oh yeah?'

'Yes, up to crater half hour, down to lake two hour and up the other side 3 hour, 3 hours very steep'

'Huh.....steeper than this?'

'Oh yes'

I think it was at about this point that something inside me snapped and my soul departed. I decided that I was heading down tomorrow, sod the money, I don't care, this is my hell.

We reached the campsite and helped Dali pitch my tent, Musliman was carrying the other tent and was mysteriously absent, he'd been just behind us a little while before. We found out later from another couple that he'd been sat smoking and faffing around about 400m down the slope. The couple had eventually told their porter to tell him that he should probably go and find us....seeing as he had our sleeping bags and all. I lost count of the number of times I saw Dali turn round and shout angrily down the slope at him, I can't speak the language, but I think it translated roughly to 'hurry the f**k up!!'. I changed into the only things I had that were remotely dry (hadn't had the foresight to pack alternative trousers) and went to warm my frozen toes over the fire. By now Tina and Gary had decided that they were also going down tomorrow. Gary had a nasty cut on his toe that was killing him, and so over dinner....in the dark, we told the porters that we wanted to go down tomorrow. Apart from making sure we realised that we wouldn't get any money back they didn't seem too bothered......snuggled in their warm jumpers.....gits.

I went to bed in my cold tent, cold sleeping bag and mostly dry tops, and crossed my fingers that I wouldn't die of hypothermia during the night.

Can you tell I was REALLY enjoying myself? :o)

The others wanted to go to the crater rim before heading down the next morning, that meant getting up at 4:30am to get there for sunrise. I was spent.....'wake me up when you get back'.

I woke up the next morning (silver lining?) in time to see sunrise from my tent and the comfort of my now-tepid sleeping bag. As soon as the sun came up I began trying to dry my clothes in haste for the journey down. I had success with one pair of knickers....which was kind of pointless as my trousers hadn't really dried. Breakfast was delivered to my tent, along with a cup of tea, which was rather nice. It was a surprisingly good banana pancake, and they gave me some chocolate sauce to go on top. Half an hour later they delivered another one. I think they were lightening their load for the way down.

Time for the journey down....easier right??.......Ahem.

I'm thankful for a few things on my downward journey:

1) Gravity

2) That I wasn't using the same muscles as I used for the climb up

3) The stick that I'd collected for walking on the way up

There was the familiar longing for the glimpse of a rest-point on the way down, and by the end my knees were absolutely shot. I'd slightly twisted the left one in a fall near the top of the mountain and so I was favouring the right one. By the end, my right knee had taken so much weight that it just started to give out. At one point I was walking along an almost flat section and all of a sudden I found myself in a crouching position, my knee had just totally given out.

Musliman had stuck with me at Dali's command, and encouraged me to take frequent breaks....for my benefit or his I have no idea, either way....I wasn't complaining.

So I finally made it down, huzzah!! Time for that nice easy stretch to the office that I remembered from the day before. Not so easy with 2 dodgy knees and an ache in every muscle you can imagine. Old ladies passed me in flip flops with bundles of wood slung over their shoulders......for shame. I looked about 50 years older than them, hefting myself downhill with the help of a stick. They would come up behind me and I'd move aside to let them pass, in their ever-polite Indonesian way they would gesture for me to carry on, they'd follow me down. If I'd let them I'd have ended up being followed into town by an entourage of geriatrics looking like they were getting ready to build my funeral pyre when I finally dropped dead......silly dead tourists.

I can't describe the relief when I finally hopped (shambled?) onto the back of a moto to go to the hotel. I arrived and they asked me where I was going this afternoon?

'Nowhere...I'm staying here...do you have a room? Yes? I'll take it, it's done. Show me that shower baby!' They could have charged me anything, I'd have paid it!

What an experience....I can't remember when I last sweated so much, stunk so bad or was so completely exhausted in my entire life, Nicki.....remember that horse-riding.....5 times worse!! I feel sorry for the people I gave my laundry to today. I'm also still discovering scratches, bruises and mossie bites galore.

Maybe time to join a gym when I get home, what an unwelcome demonstration of just how unfit I am.

If I ever mention that I'm thinking of climbing a mountain again......slap me!

My but that was cathartic! Happier posts to follow :o) Thanks for listening if you got this far lolz! xxx

P.S That STUPID bag is going in the bin, you should see the state of it...and it's stinking out my room. I don't think Aussie customs would even let me through with it!! Tarrah!!