The rest of the descent

PHOTOS

The climb down was slow, but the views were beautiful as we were still well above the clouds. At one point, I came across a fire one of the guides had lit just for the fun of it. It rose up blocking my path and then died down a bit and I skirted around it. The guy had left it. Why did he build the fire? Why had he left it? What is it about Indonesia and fire? I noticed that last year too.

When we descended into the forest, the path got worse. In fact, I wouldn’t actually go as far as to call it a path at all. More of a mud slide. In the dark we hadn’t seen how badly eroded it was. It was so slippery and I fell so many times either on losse gravel, slippery mud, wet leaves or exposed tree roots. I haven’t had this many cuts and bruises since the Pogues concert in Nagoya last year

We had been going for 3 hours and we were still only half way there. I never imagined that it would take as long to descend as it had to climb, but I didn’t anticipate the path being this bad. We have been spoiled by beautifully maintained trails in Japan, clearly marked and with enough ropes, ladders and steps to make the steeper bits safe. The walk should have been organized as a 2 day one really with a camp near the top. 12 hours almost continuous walking was tough, even for seasoned hikers.

As we neared the village we started to pass thatched houses, tethered bullocks and marigold fields. We were looking forward to the last gentle stretch, but our guide (who had been miles ahead of us the entire time) appeared and asked us if we wanted a short cut. At least, that’s what we thought he said (his English was very limited). Now I’m thinking he must have said “How about walking straight down the slippery valley at a 50 degree angle and up again for the last half an hour?” because that’s exactly what we did. Ouch. My legs ache again just thinking about that last bit.

At the car, kids descended on us to sell post cards and I wasn’t in the mood. After a quick wash with a pile of wet wipes, we said goodbye to our guide and were driven away for lunch at one of those huge places full of tourists that we had carefully avoided last year. We were too tired to protest and resigned ourselves to a buffet of bland vegetables, cold noodles and cut fruit with hovering flies on it. As we got there, they were replenishing the rice and noodles and it turned out to be very good and spicy. We gobbled it down. It had been a while since our last proper meal.

It was a 2 hour drive back to Tana Lot Meridien and I was worried that our driver would fall asleep as he had been up the whole night climbing too. I tried my hardest to stay awake and keep an eye on the road, but I kept dozing off, waking with a jolt every time my head fell backwards.