We left the campsite shortly after two o´clock in the morning. We, that is Sandy a great man in his fifties on vacation from Australia and me, the bearded irish, german guy. The path up to the summit at 3,726 m is easy at daylight, but stumbling accross tree trunks, piles of rubble and dust at night with only a flashlight do illuminate the way is not as easy as it may seem. Due to drought the path up mainly consisted of soft dust, ankle to shin deep. Taking two steps up resulted in sliding one step back down again. Traveling through Indonesia did not require a load of mountain climbing equipment, so we didn´t take either windproof nor really warm clothing up to the top. A slight miscalculation as we found out later. Man deep crevices had to be walked through, formed by the many climbers and floods during wet season. The cone of light from my headlamp formed our sight into a tunnel like view. While decending again later we saw how close we had come to the edge of the crater. Sandy had somewhat sprinted up the mountain whilst I stopped to take photos along the way. I was stunned from the agility this man had. We had only met the day before while trekking the foothills upward. Nevertheless I was the one who had carried water and food we thankfully devoured at the summit. The higher we got the stronger the chilling winds had become. We pushed our tired selves up, accross the most challenging part of the hike. Another dusty rubble ridge at the top of the crater. Sliding back down into ankle deep grit with each step. For a distance that length on solid ground I would have needed less than five minutes, on this path it took me over twenty to get up to the summit. A rewarding view on the top wasn´t the final task for the day. We spent a couple of minutes enjoying the sunrise before heading back down using a mix of jumping and skiing moves to slide back down the path. The leaping resulted in having a huge amount of sand and gravel in between my shoes and socks. A quick breakfast with two banana pancakes and a cup of coffee completed that early morning exercise down in basecamp. I looked at my watch and realized we had climbed to the top in close to five hours and decended again in one and a half hours. Nevertheless after breakfast we set of for the other side of the crater. This time without Sandy but with three other German students. I was still the only person aside from the porters carrying his own gear. We stumbled, crawled and jumped a steep slope down to Segara Anak, the crater lake with the smaller volcanic dome standing tall in the midst. We reached the lake at mid day for a short brake to jump into the sulfur yellow hot springs. Next part of the story coming soon.
