"Lombok, my favorite" a Lombok Travel Page by bahaiano

First I wanted to do the PADI. So I went to Gili Trawangen. avery nice place to hang out. i spent 2 weeks there diving, snorkeling and just relaxing at the beach. was a wonderful time. wehen you lie at the beach there, youll allways see the gudung rinjani, the 3700m tall gigant on lombok. I heard that it is quite a big deal walking up there. youll climb around 6h on the first day, then get up early to walk another 3h, rest and climb for around 6h up to the crater-rim. there you camp and get waken up at 3 o'clock in the morning. then the toughest part of the trek beginns. you climb in compleate darkness for 3-5h up to the summit. and then on the same day raound 6h down to the sea. well this sounded way to much for me. but, you never know which way you ll go when you travelling. so tree weeks later, i ended up in the rinjani basecamp on 500m over sea, ready to climb this vulcano!

for those who like it hard and dusty, this is the perfect challange! the rinjani is one of the highest peaks in indonesia. it reaches a height of about 3700m. and because its on a small island, the 360degree-view is amazing. but before you are able to enjoy this spectaculat view, you gotta do hard work. because there are no cablecars or lifts like in the swiss alps (where i come from), you have to walk up there!

there are various treks you can book. peple will try to sell them to you all over the island. the cheapest deal you ll get, when you go by bus or bike-taxi to SENARU. senaru is the base-camp for most of the rinjani-excursiones, where you can buy all-inclusive tours up to the mountain. since 2001 it is forbidden to trek on your own. well its not because its dangerous or so, its simply to support the local trekking-business. but its a good thing to trek with a guide and porters. you get them quite cheap and they are funny people with good stories and a good tast of cooking! the different variants of the treks you ll find below "tips" somewhere.

i ve choosen the 3day-trip up to the top. as a swiss i already missed the beloved alps (after 2mounth travelling), so i couldnt resist going for the summit.

fist day was a nice, but steady steep walk up to the rim. when i arrived theere, the view struk me like a hammer. rarely in my life i was that impresst! amazing. there on the rim we spent a cold, windy night. on the second day, we hiked down the inside of the craterrim (i was told there were many deaths on this part of the trip, what didin suprised me a bit :-)). down at the craterlake we found us in a strange surrounding. it was like another world than indonesia. looked more like a calm swiss mountain-lake, just disturbed by a big vulcano in the middle of it. there we had the possibility to take a bath in a sulfur-waterfal. ahhh, that was a pleasure. the same day we left to climb the other side of the crater, where the rinjani-summit was wating for us. just a few hundrets meters (on about 3000mos) below the summit we stayed for the "night". this night ended at 3 o'clock in the morning, when we got up in the dark and left the camp first for the summit. this last part was the hardest! damnit, it was sooooooo ***ing hard, because there was just gravel-paths. the guides say: two steps forward, one back... i fought hard to keep my rythm and reached the top first. what an adventure. the top s just a few square-meters of stone with steep wals on every side. this was my first mountain i totaly climbed by foot. and it was big one to start with!