The third day started after about 12 hours of sleep. We crashed hard last night after both the summit trek and the trek down to the crater lake.
Down here at the lake it is a lot of locals. It turns out that this is an important site for celebrating the upcoming national day 17th of August. Lots and lots of people gathers here to fish in the lake and just chill out. Mostly men, though.

We were told that the last president had flown up in a helicopter and set out 2000 fish in the lake. I’m not sure how long they will last with all this people around. There were many there when we left, but according to our guide it will be thousands upon thousands from all over Lombok there this next Sunday.
As every day we got a healthy breakfast and set about for our trek. We were to go up the crater on the other side and down maybe an hour on the other side. We did so much more…

The climb up the crater is from 2000-2600 meters and much of it is pretty straight up. We spent 2 hours on the climb and came to the crater rim to a spectacular view. All pictures promoting Rinjani is basically taken from this point. With a great view of the lake, the active inner volcano and the Rinjani summit itself.

The we started on the trek downhill. “Maybe down to waterfall”, said our guide Aman. We agreed and started walking – for another 6 hours. On the last part of the trek I was walking on pure willpower. With 22 out of the last 54 hours spent on walking, mostly climbs or descents, my legs were shaking, blisters appeared, toes and toenails were begging for mercy and I smelled like your average local hobo.

But on and on we went. Down through thick jungle and slippery slopes. We saw both grey and black monkeys on the way. And finally, there was the waterfall. After 8,5 hours of walking did we see the yellow tent.

But it just got better. The waterfall is not just for pretty pictures, it’s for showering. So we got undressed, got in and under and washed so much of the filth, dust, smell and grit away. It was heavenly! As the pictures show it is a rather large drop and the pressure is high. It holds about 17-18 centigrade and thereby more than I would have thought.

Dinner, brush teeth, sleep.

Day 4 started out at 7:30 where we walked the last 30 minutes to Johns hotel. Just enough to claim a fourth day of trekking. 🙂
From there we were taken to our new hotel in Senggigi further south west on the island. Here we have already booked the ferry back to
Bali, gotten a haircut and leg wax (guess who did what?) and we both had a massage. The calves and front of thighs hurt like a ________ (fill In blank) but I guess it will be worse tomorrow.

 

All in all it’s been a great adventure. We can highly recommend both the Rinjani trek and Johns Adventure, but there are some does and don’ts:
– Bring trekking shoes. You will have a better time, and you will not ruin your shoes.
– Bring warm cloths. It is freezing on the top (literary). Would you do shorts in that temp and heavy wind back home?
– Drink enough. We brought a little extra water, but just make sure you keep hydrated. We have camelback that let’s us take small sips easily. We used these every 15 min to keep the intake at a good level. It also helped us break down every trek into smaller parts.
– Bring a head torch. If you can get the head mounted torch. You need both hands to the summit, or to the toilet tent at night.
– Eat. Whatever you are served by your porter, eat it. You need the fuel.
– Bring some extra snack you like and that will give you energy. Chocolate, nuts, bars… As long as it gives you that little kick.
-Stay positive. When walking upwards it’s easy to let theirs wander to negative places. Look at where you will place your feet next and the top will be conquered.

We talked a lot about the feeling of achievement we got from this. Knowing we can take this kind of “heat” straight on makes us sure we will enjoy a lot of other treks this upcoming year.
Right now it’s Bintang time! Cheers!