| Excerpt from Mefloquine Dreams - copyright 2004 by Chris Farrell A Hangover From Hell, Incessant Crinkling, Even More Thieving Monkeys, and 3 in a 1 Man Tent = Party
New reservations intact, we dashed back in the pouring rain to our pad, packed up, and madly ran back to the new place, arriving wet but very excited. This place might be the most luxurious place we'd rented on the entire trip; like Martha Stewart in the middle of a gigantic Indonesian rice paddy. There was nothing to do now but kick back for a couple hours reading and enjoying the constant roar of the rain all around us.
Finally towards late morning it started to show signs of letting up, so we both took quick bath/showers (bathtub with a hand-held shower head), changed into some clean dry clothes, and re-emerged into the now cloudy, misty air.
As we approached the street, still obscured from view by the rice, we started making bets on how far we could get before getting TRANSPORT?!ed. It was futile; from our first step on the pavement, a passing van rolled down its windows and screamed TRANSPORT?! at us in a rabid frenzy. We allowed the guys to stop and explained what we needed. "We're looking to go down to Senur, maybe Kuta, then the airport and back here with no definitive timeline…what do you think?"
The guys leaned together in the van and conversed for a second. Fully expecting to hear an astronomical price like 300,000 rupiah or something (close to $45), they instead slightly shocked us. "How about 100,000 rupiah?" Not only were they coming in not too far off the "real" mark (whatever that may be - we had no idea), but they were even asking us if this was acceptable. Wow. Usually these quotes would be stated as pure irrefutable fact.
"Hmmm," Paige started, fully nominated as our designated haggler for the rest of our existence due to her repeated success over the past year, "that seems kind of high to us. We were thinking more like 50,000."
"80,000," he replied.
"70," she threw back.
"OK," he responded. Wait, wait, wait…this had all gone too fast for me to properly understand what was going on. It took a few seconds to realize that the haggling was in fact over and we had just rented a van with driver for the entire day for $10. My wife never ceased to amaze me. That was way too painless compared to what we'd been anticipating. Just goes to show that you had to be able to go with the flow at all times. Maybe we should have started at 10,000…
We piled in the van and were off rushing through the wet streets in no time, soon heading for the Grand Bali Beach Hotel to pick up our plane tickets. It was there that we barreled right into a wall of bad news: as we picked up our Continental tickets from Bali to Guam to Honolulu to Los Angeles on July 25, in just over two weeks, our tickets from San Francisco to Peru had a major snag: One of the legs was still unavailable to our frequent flier miles. If that flight didn't open, we were screwed because there weren't any more flights for over a month and a half to and from Peru.
There was nothing we could do about it right there and then however, except stew in our fear and depression juices. It was time to start seriously thinking about where else we could go, maybe even telling United to send us wherever they had open tickets on the day we arrived back in the U.S. Hell, it worked back in Dublin for our bus trip to Donegal, right? The only thing we wanted at this point was insurance that our arrival back in Los Angeles would not end up being our forced, unwanted end to this trip. We had two weeks to figure it out.
With a bitter taste in our mouths, we were back in our van and leaving the plush grounds of the hotel. There was over an hour to kill before Robert's plane landed, so we decided to have our drivers take us to the one part of Kuta that was the least offensive of all: the grocery store. "We'll meet you right here in one hour," I told them as we hopped out of the van and slipped them some extra cash to buy lunch while they waited.
We stocked up on a few necessities, including 12 giant 22oz. bottles of Bintang, but the more that I thought about Robert's festive arrival, the more a dozen bottles seemed like far too little. It was all I could carry right then, so we retired across the street to an actual Round Table Pizza. Again, like in Jaipur and Aqaba (Pizza Hut) or Kota Bharu and Kuala Lumpur (A&W) we sought the comfort (and air conditioning) of a first world fast food joint. Here, basking in our weak state, we scarfed an entire large pepperoni pizza and then felt like gluttonous pigs in the greasy aftermath. But in a good way.
Finally, it was time. Flawlessly our drivers met us at the appointed spot and within no time we were back at the Senur airport, winding around its impressively manicured grounds towards the front doors. "We'll drop you here and when you are ready just come stand on the curb and we will see you and come pick you up," he told us. Sounded good to me. We hopped out and joined the throng of people waiting outside the front doors for arrivals. No one was allowed inside except people arriving from flights and going through immigration and changing money inside. In my last email to Robert I'd instructed him not to change money inside as we now had the full scoop on where and how to get the best rates (and most importantly what those rates were). Since we were familiar with the Bali/Kuta money changing game, I fully intended to give the throng of black market changers hanging just outside the doors a try. I wanted to see them try to screw us without a table or a sham store to hide behind.
We were still kind of early, but that was a good thing in order to defer any potential Robert-wrath (a Texas-drawled verbal ass-whoopin'). And in defiance to the natural accordance of airline protocol, his flight actually arrived early too. Suddenly Robert burst through the doors with a gigantic smile, and carrying…MY GUITAR! Hugs all around in a whirlwind of emotions and Robert handed it over, "Finally! Take the damn thing off my hands!"
But this seemed too easy. The memories of watching for the postman every day back in Torre del Lago, repeatedly going to all the local Italian post offices in vain and painful attempts to find out anything at all about Robert's shipment, scouring the streets of Rome with my cousin Cathy looking for a music store that sold Martin backpacker guitars while I was completely caught up in desire and frustration, feeling tied up with anxiety in Kathmandu and hoping against hope for the guitar to show up at our hotel…all of it coming to nothing at all. And yet, here it was, that same guitar that had already traveled across the world, twice, and was now finally in my hands.
But there would be plenty of time to both lament and celebrate the guitar's being. We were all instantly immersed in conversation, talking at once, laughing and joking like it had only been a few weeks instead of a year since we'd last seen each other. Robert had stuck to our advice and hadn't yet changed any money; I was ready, willing and able to take on the Balinese black market once again, and Robert handed over two hundred dollar bills. It was time for me to do my dirty business.
Over by the front doors stood a pack of moneychangers soliciting each and every person exiting the airport. I walked right up and stood in front of them, "Change money?" I asked before they could say the same thing to me.
"Yes, good rate, good rate, how much you change?"
"Depends on your rate."
"Rate depends on how much you change." Apparently without any discussion among the pack, this one guy had been appointed my official money-changing agent.
"OK, let's say $100 U.S." I told them. I knew the official rate, as of that afternoon, was in the neighborhood of 7,050 rupiah to the dollar.
"7,100," he responded. Good!
"OK, how about if I change $200?"
"You have $200? Show me." I showed him the two bills. "I give you 7,200 for $200."
"I can get 7,500 in Kuta." This was a hollow threat, and we both knew it. But it was also an effective tactic as it actually was the going advertised rate around town. I was just sending the message that I knew the game and I wasn't about to be taken down easily.
"OK," he said, "I give you 7,300."
Not good enough. "7,400 and you've got a deal."
"OK, 7,400." Wait wait wait, here we go again. What was going on today that these people were giving in so easily? Either we didn't know something that they did, or we were exuding some kind of confidence and knowledge that was vividly apparent to touts. That would be pretty cool, especially considering that we didn't have any confidence or knowledge. Well, maybe a little confidence and knowledge, but definitely not enough to send touts agreeing to our every whim in a wake of smarmy negotiations.
In further defiance to the only reality of money changing that we had known in Bali, the guy actually counted out the entire 1,480,000 rupiah himself and then handed it over for us to count. I was a little nervous…this wasn't the way that I expected it to go down. Where was the slip going to occur? I was losing my grip of control in all that control. After counting I handed the money to Robert and he counted too…the guy wasn't asking for it back or anything…I was getting more anxious by the minute. Finally, I realized that there was nothing left to do but hand over the two hundred dollar bills, and parted with them very slowly. The guy said, "Thank you!" and turned back to the door and more people exiting. I was left standing there with my arm outstretched…where had I missed it? Surely some money had been lifted, but how? But nope, it was as clean a transaction as could be.
"So…" Robert turned to me, "what's the big deal?" Exactly. I had built this up to be a major clash of Tout vs. Tourist, but instead it had been about as exciting as changing a dollar bill into quarters at the local Laundromat. Whatever, at least Robert had gotten a decent exchange rate. Actually, his rate was much better than ours back in Senggigi where we'd only gotten 7,100…I was considering changing more money with the guy, but Paige had already waved over our van and they were waiting by the curb. We all piled in, tossed Robert's packs in the back and settled in for the ride back to Ubud, re-immersed back into the excitement of seeing Robert and having a new travel partner for the rest of our Indonesian experience.
Back in Ubud, our TRANSPORT?!ers returned back to the side of the road where we'd been picked up earlier in the day and we all hopped out. "Thanks so much for all your help!" Paige told the driver and handed over the 70,000 rupiah. The guy gave us a brief smile and was off again in the never-ending search to provide TRANSPORT?! to the meek and weary. We, however, had more important things to take care of…like stopping by the little shop nearby to stock up on cold bottles of Bintang to compliment our dozen warm bottles we already had. Luggage, beer, and tickets intact, we left the street and began walking single file along the irrigation canals lining the rice paddies, slipping and sliding through the mud all the way back to our haven of luxury.
Walking across the fields towards our cottage, Paige and I were at the peak of excitement; all morning long we couldn't wait to see the look on Robert's face when we led him through endless paddies to a sole house out in the middle of it all, and then showed him our amazing room and picturesque porch overlooking the land. But we had forgotten to remember the little nugget of enlightenment that Kate's friend had shared with us: coming from work into an Indonesian two week vacation isn't as easy as it seems. We were on two totally different wavelengths. Paige and I were used to staying in dumpy, $5 a night places with a hole in the floor (toilet) and a hole in the wall (cold shower); this was paradise compared to that. Robert, on the other hand, was used to his own house, working 5 days a week, and 1st World amenities in every regard. We hadn't considered that this might be a pretty large step down for him… But thankfully in the end he was actually pretty awe stricken, and the three of us planted ourselves out on the porch with cold beers and a special gift from Robert: a two pound bag of sunflower seeds! Bring on the salt!
The entire night was a blast, like an all-out college party atmosphere: good friends, plenty of beer, and a great pad. Initially I was nervous to pick up the guitar; there was so much baggage, it just completely overwhelmed me. But slowly I forced myself past it all and tinkered around for a while, absolutely exuberant that I could have it along with us, if only for the remaining month of our trip. Robert had brought more CDs, a giant bottle of Motrin, and assorted snacks, so we were in heaven.
The porch itself needs a little description. Open on three sides, our 180º view gave us unobstructed rice on all sides with mountains of coconut trees in the distance. The rain had disappeared completely, so as the day wound down in the sun, rice farmers and their families walked the irrigation paths making unbelievable noise in order to scare off flocks of blackbirds that always seemed to sneak in unnoticed. They had strung wire throughout all the paddies and dangled tin cans filled with rocks every so often, so by grabbing a corner of wire and shaking it furiously, it created a deafening sound that was only broken by the accompanied screaming and wailing of the human scarecrow behind it all. Sure enough, more often than not a flock of birds would burst out of the rice helter-skelter, only to land in the neighbor's paddy. All pretty entertaining (and fascinating) stuff, but nothing breaks up a good conversation like a sudden burst of screaming and tin cans filled with rocks. All part of the unique experience…
As darkness settled in, conversation showed no signs of ending anytime soon as Robert filled us in on everything we'd been missing back in the States for the past year. Realizing that if we didn't eat soon all the restaurants would close, we tore ourselves away around 9:00 and headed back to civilization. There, we all dove into great Indonesian food, putting away another couple beers, and stumbled back to our cottage in the dark, laughing and talking all the way. By midnight, Paige couldn't keep her eyes open anymore and left the comfort of the porch for the comfort of passing out in our bed. It was up to Robert and I to pick up the slack, and we did so until just past 4 AM…when the beer finally ran out.
We were thoroughly toasted, especially me. My attempts to build up my tolerance levels had proven fruitless, but as I laid on our bed listening to Robert and Paige's breathing in the darkness, I could not fall asleep. Soon the sunrise started to slowly penetrate our room and still I was wide-awake. This was no good. Our plan was to stay in Ubud for one more day then take off Wednesday morning for Padangbai and the ferry back over to Lombok once again. The last thing I wanted was to have to crash out all afternoon and miss out on hanging out with Robert and Paige. But there was nothing I could do. Sleep was just not going to happen.
Around 6 AM, I finally gave up and returned back out to the porch to wait for Paige and Robert to wake up, trying to read, but not finding the ability to focus my eyes properly. Eventually, around 8:00, with the two of them starting to stir behind me, I hiked back out to the main office just off the main irrigation path to get us all breakfast, stumbling and swerving the whole way and nearly doing a face-plant into the mud on more than one occasion. My blood alcohol level was obviously still ragingly high.
I couldn't eat. I wasn't feeling hungover, pain, nausea or anything, but I was feeling really strange, like my head and body were just out of control. This in turn left me feeling continuously dizzy and disoriented. But without the hangover factor, and considering the fact that I was still coherent, I was sure I was fine. It was just going to take a couple hours or so to get me back to normal. And maybe a good nap at some point. I popped 1,200 grams of Motrin in celebration of this realization.
By midmorning it was apparent that this would be the first purely sunny day in awhile and we all decided that this was the perfect opportunity to head out on one of those hikes around Ubud that we’d wanted to do. LP gave a number of suggestions, all of which appeared to be quite a time commitment, but what the hell – we’d work up a sweat and settle in for a nice lunch. Once we’d all properly lathered up with our spf45 liquid band aids and slapped on some hats, we were off; this time heading for the coconut hills and exclusively staying on the paths. Of course within thirty minutes we got completely lost and turned around, but when we unexpectedly hit a small, unused road, we were sure we were once again on the right path.
The rice, the occasional Hindu Temple, and the insane lushness were all driving nails of unweilding stimulation into my brain, and soon, bathed in dripping sweat, waterless and tired beyond belief, we agreed it was time to turn around and head back. We’d lasted an hour. At the apex of our “journey” we were hoping beyond reality to somehow stumble on a nice AC restaurant out in the middle of all this rice, and like manna from heaven there appeared a little bamboo shack with the incredible sign: “Café Api Api.” In one of the purest forms of joy the three of us starting singing, “Café Api Api! Café Api Api!” as we danced in the road towards Mecca…but it was, of course, closed. If we weren’t convinced before that we’d had enough strenuous activity for the day by 11 AM, this sealed the deal. After a quick photo op with a furless dog whose diseased skin festered in sores and runny pus but still laid splayed out on the road enjoying the morning sun, we headed back for good.
That was when we stumbled upon the cockfight. None of us were even paying attention to the group of guys sitting in front of some boarded up shacks until we were nearly past. I think it was the inhuman “SQUAWK!” wailing out of nowhere that caught our attention. Two guys were furiously attempting to hold onto a couple of roosters whose feathers were all puffed out and eyes screamed murder. We wandered over to get a taste of some 3rd world culture when one of the guys suddenly saw us. “You want picture?” he asked, seeing our cameras. Why not? The guys lined up again and let the beasts loose in a fury of feathers and ear piercing yelps. One token picture for their effort and we were out of there. What fun is a cockfight without serious betting, flowing booze and fist fights among the patrons? This was an embarrassment to all that the sport of cockfighting embodies.
Winding back the way we came through paddies, along the street, down the hill, and across the suspension bridge, we made it into town 45 minutes later…starving. And that was when it hit me. Hard. The alcohol, the overexertion, the heat, the no food/no water/no sleep factors commingling in something closely resembling hell…I felt like I was dying. None of us were in a mood to shop around and wandered into an upscale touristy restaurant with tables out in back overlooking the gorge. We settled in but I was going downhill from the bottom and fast. My head was spinning beyond control, poison was coursing through my veins, and vomit and diarrhea were begging to be allowed to violently project from the nearest orifice. Who was I to argue?
Somehow I managed to sit through lunch, eating and drinking nothing (even sips of water so small that they barely wet my lips were too much for me, nearly causing me to pass out), unable to participate in or even understand Paige and Robert’s conversations. That was it for me; I headed straight back to our cottage alone while they took off to do some shopping. I have no idea how I successfully made it all the way back to our house, pure survival I guess, but the second I returned I fell into bed and continued declining non stop the rest of the afternoon. I felt if I could sleep a little it might help assuage the poison, but the violent chills, fever, diarrhea and headache promised to keep that a distant dream. Maybe if I could vomit…in each of my unending trips to the toilet I would stick my finger down my throat in pure fear and come up gagging and coughing…but no vomit. There was nothing to vomit up. No food, no liquid, just dry bile and crusted poison. I was hating.
Late in the afternoon Robert and Paige returned to see me in a sad state. Robert was kind enough to extend a few jovial barbs, (“C’mon you pussy, quit faking it and get off your ass!”), which was the same foolproof method Mom used to use on me when I was sick as a kid, but this time it just wasn’t going to work. I was absolutely incoherent the rest of the night, wavering in and out of consciousness, trying my hardest to down as much water as my body could handle, but still nothing seemed to change. It was all bad. Immersed in all that unhealthy negativity, both Robert and Paige crashed out early in anticipation of another long travel day the next morning. As far as I was concerned, I would drag myself to that damn ferry if I had to. I didn’t care how horrible I felt: I was going back to Lombok. Finally, sleep had its way with me.
I opened my eyes just before 6 AM the next morning, remembered where I was, and instantly took stock. I should feel like shit…but I felt OK. I opened my eyes expecting daggers of intense pain, but instead felt alive and energetic. I hopped out of bed…I felt great! It had totally passed! I was ecstatic. Bubbling with excitement, I jumped in the tub and took a hand shower, changed into some clean clothes, and quickly packed up as Paige and Robert rolled out of bed. We were excited; our plans were intact, we were all healthy, and everything was once again fine. The three of us strapped on our packs and headed out at 7 AM for the last time across the paddies.
Today we’d simply need a one-way ride directly to Padangbai and the ferry. We would reach the road, grab the first TRANSPORT?! guy who approached us, perfectly negotiate a fair fee, and be off within five minutes, no problem.
But there was a problem. When we hit the road it was empty. No cars, no people, nothing. We wound around down the hill and out to the main road leading back to Ubud: still nothing. We kept turning around expecting cars to come whipping out of the jungle towards us, preparing to wave them down, but we were alone. So incredibly alone. No screams of “TRANSPORT?!” no double jack-off mimes, no running across the street to sell to whitey… What in god’s name was going on here? Of course the one day that we needed TRANSPORT?!, it was absolutely nowhere to be found. Had we just dreamed all that crap about the annoying prominence of TRANSPORT?! people? Had they banded together to screw us since we had repeatedly shunned then during out Indonesian experience? This was no fair!
Thirty minutes later we’d walked the entire way back into Ubud without a single lead. By this time, we were getting seriously worried that we were going to miss the ferry. Assuming it took an hour to get out there, we were already cutting it way too close. Here it was, 8 AM, and we were already dripping with sweat, exhausted, and totally frustrated. Ah, a day in the life of travel. Finally, we approached a random guy with a van and outright begged him to take us to Padangbai. He spoke no English and seemed to be occupied with something else, but our repeated pleas and shouts of “Rupiah! Rupiah!” eventually caught his attention and he turned towards us.
“Please! To Padangbai! Fast! Fast!” A traffic cop was yelling at him to get the hell off the curb and we piled in before he could tell us to get the hell out. “Padangbai! Fast!” we all three shouted again over and over, and finally he seemed to get the message. We were off, and already behind the expected timeline. This guy would have to be like a jet in a tailwind to make up time for us. Robert whipped out his LP Bali/Lombok and looked up the word for “fast.” It wasn’t there.
“Kapal!” he yelled.
“What does that mean?” Paige asked.
“Boat…” It was close, but not urgent enough. I opened our LP up.
“KEBAKARAN!” I screamed out of nowhere. The driver grew panicked and started talking uncontrollably, looking in his rearview mirror and stepping on the gas. This was good.
“What did you tell him?” Paige asked.
“FIRE!” I answered. Hey, whatever worked.
Sweating beyond control and steaming up the van windows, there was nothing to do now but hope for the best. I had a mad desire to hop in the front seat, push the driver aside and floor the accelerator, but I would need to show a little more patience or Robert might not believe that we'd actually been on the road for a year. Solely in the hands of the driver, we tried to sit back and relax, hoping that the free flowing sweat factor would soon abate.
We sped past jungle roads, temples and random towns, all in a mad blur of motion. We were really moving; this guy had most definitely gotten the point. Less than an hour later, we whipped into Padangbai and screeched to a halt at the edge of the parking lot with the ferry boat still tied up to the dock; we'd made it with nine minutes to spare. I tossed a wad of rupiah at the driver and we took off running crazily, packs wobbling on our backs, heading straight for the ticket window.
"I am sorry, you are too late," the agent told us before we could get a word out.
"What?" I demanded, "We've still got six minutes, and look," I pointed at the ship, "See? It's right there?"
"No, I am sorry, but they are pulling up the gangplank now. Next ferry will leave in one hour and a half," he told us. Since when did public transportation actually leave early in the third world? This was insane. If anything, we should be waiting for 9 hours for this baby to leave. Hmm. Maybe we needed to look at it that way. Waiting an hour and a half for the next ferry to leave was infinitely better than waiting the rest of the day for the first one to leave. We sauntered over to the benches, tossed our packs down, and settled in.
An hour later a line started forming at the entrance to the gate leading out to the dock. This seemed like a good idea considering that the next 4-6 hours were to be spent sitting on brutal wooden benches, the floor, or standing. We wanted to do everything possible to ensure the first option, even if it was only the littlest of the three evils.
This was a different boat. This is an important point to make because this boat, in direct defiance to our two other ferry experiences, had an enclosed AC room! Thank god we had jumped in line early; we burst through the doors and secured two prime benches strategically placed between the windows and one of the ACs.
Smiling from ear to ear and with sweat crystals forming on our bodies in the unexpected cold, we settled in for some heated Italian Scrabble, reading, napping, listening to music, and gabbing; all while endless loud and violent Kurt Russell and Arnold Schwarzenegger movies played over and over on the sole TV, blasting death and gunfire through the maxed out speakers. Hours later, Lombok slowly re-appeared off in the distance: a glorious beacon of warmth and familiarity. The only problem was that, again, we pulled into the bay on time but were forced to wait for nearly two hours until another ship pulled out. As it departed, we couldn't help but be extra bitter that it was that same ferry that left without us earlier in the morning. Bastard.
Our first Lombok destination was not, surprisingly, back to San Tai. San Tai was a sure thing. All of us felt the need for the three of us to try something completely new first. Back in Ubud when we had the conversation with Robert about what we should do for the next two weeks, Robert was totally prepared, "My goal for this trip is not to change your travel regimen. I was hoping that I could just slip into the momentum you've built and the style you've grown accustomed to without forcing you to change anything simply to accommodate me. Whatever you guys had planned and however you wanted to do it sounds good to me."
This was very magnanimous, but the truth of the situation was that if it wasn't for Robert, we'd still be snoozing in the hammock on the front porch of our cottage at San Tai. "Well," I replied, "I hear ya, but we definitely don't want to lay out the next two weeks with a set agenda. We have some cool ideas for things to do, so how about we just choose the things we want to do, and if we decide we want to do nothing, that's cool too."
Robert was down. "Cool by me." We'd done quite a bit of research on Lombok over the past month, holding back on doing almost everything that looked interesting until Robert arrived. Now we threw it all out at him at once. It all sounded good: Ubud, the tiny island of Gili Nanggu (just off of Lombok), San Tai (snorkeling, relaxing, etc.), the northern Gilis, the waterfalls near Senaru, and, the ultimate fantasy: climbing Gunung Rinjani, Lombok's volcano with a lake and hotsprings at the top (a three day excursion). This was a lot; we'd just have to take it one day at a time.
Back in Lembar, Lombok's western dock, we were looking for a local fisherman or someone to take us an hour or so by boat south to Gili Nanggu. Back in Padangbai I'd even gone to the trouble of calling the sole guesthouse on the island to see what the vacancy rate looked like.
"You guys have any open rooms for tonight and the next couple nights?"
"Yes of course! No problem! Lots of good rooms!" he enthusiastically replied.
"Do I need to make a reservation?" I asked.
"No no no no. No problem."
"OK, because I understand you have some nice secluded cottages and some basic common losmen rooms; we definitely will need two cottages. I'll be happy to reserve them because we're actually getting on the ferry in about an hour and are coming directly to Gili Nanggu. Will that work OK?" I was persistent because…it just couldn’t hurt to be persistent in reservations. We'd had enough misfortune on this trip already with reservation bullshit. I wanted those reservations signed in blood if possible.
"OK OK, no problem," he acquiesced, "what is your name…?" Good, now there would be no surprises.
Upon seeing the three whiteys leave the ship and not get instantly whisked away, standing on the dock looking like they needed something, a hoard of touts quickly surrounded us. "TRANSPORT?!" came the familiar chorus. This was not how we wanted to conduct the next stage of negotiations. Robert and I stayed with the touts, strategically wasting their time, while Paige slipped away and began approaching random fisherman and their dugout canoes. Twenty minutes later she returned with good news: a cheap ride over to Gili Nanggu leaving right away. Beautiful.
Of course, nothing was that easy. Once we climbed down the embankment to the water's edge and found our fisherman, we realized we'd be jamming ourselves and our packs in a tiny little outrigger canoe (with a motor, thank god) meant for one…and some fish. Somehow we all made it in, wobbling and swerving, sat down, and tried to get comfortable. With all that weight, the boat's lip protruded about one full inch above the water. This should be fun. Soon, the fisherman started the lawnmower engine and we were buzzing through the bay in the late afternoon sun.
Everything was fine, at least until we got out to sea. That was when the calm waters turned to waves, and we started getting worried. Repeated looks towards our fisherman showed that he wasn't worried in the least, so we had no choice but to relax and calm down. Still, the thought of the outrigger tipping and sending us and our packs into the water a good mile from shore was definitely something to consider…just not right this second.
We putted out of the channel and into the ocean, maneuvering around the southern fjord, jetting at an angle just off the eastern shore and out to the open sea. We had put ourselves in a precarious position, but we also knew that the ride should only take about an hour, and it had taken a third of that just to get out of the bay. Soon, Gili Nanggu appeared and we began to get excited. By the time we beached on shore of the tiny island, the sun was getting ready to dip below the horizon, and we paid our fisherman and jumped out on the sand.
"Should we ask him to stay until we confirm we've got a room?" Paige asked. Good idea. I let them make the request while I ran up into the trees and towards the cottages. Instantly I came upon a series of two-story cottages, privately set up over the sand, and a little ways past that a long, dilapidated, barracks-like building and then the open-air restaurant/bar/common area. I quickly located the manager.
"Hi, I'm Chris Farrell, I called earlier and reserved two cottages…" I began. The guy looked at me like I was a talking plate of DAL! BHAT! or something.
"There are no cottages available," he said offhandedly. My heart sank. How did I know this was going to happen? I just had this brutal feeling that we were going to get screwed here.
I explained my conversation with the "manager" this morning, ending with, "…and he explained that two cottages were fully reserved for me tonight."
"No he didn't," the guy responded, "you never had that conversation." You know how you can heat up a glass of water in the microwave over boiling point without a ripple and suddenly it flash-boils out of nowhere? That was my blood.
"Yes. He. Did." I stated through clenched teeth. "Are you calling me a liar?" I was furious.
"Yes," he stated matter-of-factly. This was almost comical. Almost. But before lashing out past the point of going back, I somehow managed to reign in the venom and take a quick breath. If I tore this guy a new a-hole, we would have to endure a ride back to the mainland, in the dark, then hope to catch another ride up to Senggigi where vacancy was not assured. This was not at all what I wanted us all to be doing right then.
"Look," I said with as much restraint as I could muster (which probably wasn't that much), "there are three of us here, now, because someone who answered your phone this morning took our names down and explained that we now had reservations to stay here tonight. Regardless of what you think, that is what happened. Now what do we do about it?"
The guy was non-plussed. "All I have are losmen rooms."
At the very least, this stripped about 5% of my anger away knowing that we had one other option in the face of this bullshit. "Nobody held our reserved rooms for us?" I asked maintaining my monotone speech.
"There were no reservations." Loofah. There was no way I was going to win this one. "Besides," he continued, finally offering more to the conversation, "all the cottages are totally full. You want me to show you the losmen?" He was busy; I was apparently bothering him. Shit.
"OK fine." Man I was pissed. He led me over to the disgustingly run-down barracks building: a long row of doors leading into individual rooms that resembled some fucked up P.O.W. housing unit with an ancient, stained, bug-eaten mattress and nothing else besides another door out the back leading to a 3' x 3' slab of concrete and a hole in the ground caked with shit and nothing, not even a ceiling, above. Inside the room the walls separating the row of rooms went up about 8 feet…then stopped, leaving a space open along the entire set of losmen rooms. I wanted to kill myself. But first I wanted to kill this guy.
"OK fine, whatever." What else could I say?
Dejected, I walked back to the beach and got Robert and Paige together, quickly explaining the load of crap we'd just washed ashore directly into. "What do you think, you want to have this guy take us back or stick it out here?"
"Is it really that bad?" Paige innocently asked. She knew exactly how significant a “yes” answer really was in context of this trip.
"Yes." I had to be honest. I was now leaning towards just getting back in the canoe and leaving. But the other two were very indecisive. Finally Robert piped in.
"We can stick it out for a night. We're already here; they got beer, right?" Excellent point. We all unanimously agreed that we'd give it a night and see what we thought. Like sending a message in a bottle out to sea, but without the message, we waved the fisherman off and he climbed back into the outrigger with a wave and pushed off. Soon he was just a speck on the orange horizon. We picked up our packs and slowly walked towards the tree line.
Upon inspection, Paige and Robert didn't think it was as bad as I'd made it out to be. Granted, I had been angry and frustrated, but at least we had enough beds for everyone (two rooms) and a private hole in the ground if nature called. With massive fist-sized roach carapaces littering the ground in and around the rooms, we agreed that the only time we planned to spend inside was to sleep. And our hope was that it would only be a beer-induced deep one at that.
Robert had stuck a couple of unique Frisbees in his backpack back in the States; this seemed like the perfect time to run out to the beach and sweat out some frustrations before the sun was totally down. The three of us first grabbed a few beers (Guinness no less!), then walked down to the water where we had about half the island's beach to ourselves to run around helter-skelter, shouting and getting all sandy. With the last vestiges of light, we walked around to the western side of the island with Bali's volcano blocking off part of the horizon to watch the sun crash into the land in a cornucopia of reds, oranges, pinks and purples. Our spirits were salvaged.
But only for the moment. Once darkness hit, there really was no place to go but towards the light, and being that we hadn’t really eaten all day, this seemed like a good time to grab some dinner. All I can say is at least this place was consistent. Consistently bad. The food sucked. Greasy, poorly cooked nasi goreng on dirty plates in a dirty eating area. Around us, the people staying in cottages buzzed with happy conversation further fueling our disdain, anger and depression. We were staying one night, and we would be leaving on the first boat the next morning, wonderfully departing at 8 AM. Let the countdown begin.
We put in a valiant attempt to kill as much time as possible before subjecting ourselves to our dungeonous rooms, but the high prices, lame atmosphere, crappy music and negative energy surrounding us soon drove us away. Perhaps, we theorized, we could sleep this whole thing off and wake just in time to catch the boat. What an encouraging concept. Back to our rooms, we strategically stepped over the rapidly departing palm-sized dead hairy spiders which were in the process of being carried away by packs of giant ants, and lit half a dozen mosquito coils to complement the holey mosquito nets draped from the spiderwebby rafters. We said our good nights to Robert, hoping we’d all see the light of day, and turned in for the night. Slowly, and wonderfully, we drifted off.
Incessant babbling. And cellophane wrapping paper or plastic grocery bags or something highly annoying in a perpetual state of loud crinkling, like someone methodically balling them up in their hands, unraveling it, then balling it up again, over and over. My eyes popped open; it was dark and I couldn’t see what time it was on my watch…wait a second, yes I could. Light was dully emitting from somewhere. That’s when I remembered that the ceilings in this dormitory-like losmen were all, with only rafters above. If you weren’t quiet, everyone, and I mean everyone would hear you. Lucky us, just next door we got stuck next to a few gossipy older Indonesian women with insomnia and the annoying habit of crinkling plastic bags. It was so loud; I was amazed that people down in the cottages weren’t yelling. After 45 minutes of this nonsense, I jumped up and pounded on the bamboo-thatched walls. Wonderfully the noise instantly stopped. Then started again. When it rained it definitely poured.
This was a nightmare. It was 1 AM…only seven hours to go until our boat left. My sweating body felt like it had been bitten a billion times by some microscopic fucked up tropical bed bugs…I wouldn’t be surprised: the mattresses were in worse shape than ones you would find discarded and unwanted in Calcutta for god’s sake. More pounding, brief silence, more noise. I guess I would have to deal.
But by 2 AM I was still dealing, blood simmering just below boiling point. My one salvation was counting down the next six hours. Heck, we’d survived that 18 hour chicken bus from hell, surely I could wait out noise keeping me awake on a bug-filled mattress in a disgusting dungeon for six measly hours. And sure enough, over the next half an hour the din subsided enough to allow me to dip below consciousness and snooze for a while.
Yap yap yap…and more amplified plastic bag crinkling. My eyes flew open in rage. I looked at my watch; they’d let me sleep for two and a half hours: it was close to 5 AM now. Why were they doing this? I slapped the walls, but it didn’t even faze them this time. I was having a hard time restraining myself anymore. Paige wasn’t sleeping either; we were sweaty, miserable and incredibly tired, and these ladies were being totally inconsiderate of their neighbors. The more I thought of it, the louder they got until it seemed like they were yelling to each other and crinkling armfuls of plastic bags.
I jumped out of bed beyond rational thought, burst through our door, and jogged over to the door next to us in the pitch-black night; it was open. I went right in and there was a lady sitting on the bed with giant plastic bags spread out all over the place. I boiled over. “HOW LONG DO WE HAVE TO LISTEN TO YOU?!” She didn’t say a word, and instead just looked at me like a puppy that knows it had done something terribly wrong. This infuriated me even more. “DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?!” Silence. “NO…?!” Then it hit me how insane this was. I was screaming at an Indonesian lady (the other one must have been in the hole-room) who didn’t speak English and probably had no idea what I was spitting mad about. That sent me over the edge. “WELL…THEN SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!”
I walked back to our room trembling with anger and crawled back under the net. Paige was laughing at me, but all I can say is that it seemed to work; the ladies, even with the obvious language barrier, must have gotten the point from my passionate venom. Quietness reigned. …Except for Robert’s unending laughter from two rooms over, heard as clear as day. We had succeeded, only now sleep was even more impossible.
At 6 AM, just as the light began to change, I walked outside to go sit on the beach; Robert had the exact same idea, and the two of us escaped the insanity and walked down to the water’s edge laughing at the night’s surreal events. He’d grabbed his Frisbee, and as the sun peaked over Gunung Rinjani to the east, we threw hundred-yard long tosses to each other next to the crashing waves. Slowly we began to shake the negativity that Gili Nanggu had inflicted upon us, and by 7 we were ready to meet Paige and grab a quick breakfast. By the time the boat arrived, we were long packed and waiting on the sand at the edge of the dock; first ones on and itching to get going. It was only up from here.
With every second heading away from Gili Nanggu our spirits soared even higher, leaving the fist-sized cockroaches and hairy spiders behind to torture future generations of unknowing travelers. In the bright daylight the outrigger showed us some spectacular coastline including a beachside Hindu temple cut right into the rocks and some interesting paintings. We had regained our sense of adventure and inspired awe again! Paige and I had felt so bad that this horrible experience basically had to be Robert’s initial jaunt with us, and could only imagine how much he must have been second-guessing his decision to come to Indonesia. We continued to profusely apologize, confident that San Tai’s incredible atmosphere would change everything in an instant, but we were still bummed that it had happened at all. We had a long time to roll with the ups and downs; Robert only had a week. It was our duty to ensure only “ups.”
Back in Lembar, there were no ferries docked, meaning the touts had already scampered back into their crevices. Still, it was no problem securing affordable TRANSPORT?! up to Senggigi, even if we paid for it the whole way by listening to the driver endlessly attempt to gouge more money out of us. "This is too cheap a price, need to charge more."
"OK," we'd respond, "no problem. Then you might as well just take us all the way back to Lembar and forget the whole thing." Soon his vocal complaints subsided into occasional grunts and mumblings. As we began to get closer to San Tai, Paige and I were getting more and more excited; not just for our own sake, but to see Robert's face when he saw how incredible this place really was. Lord knows we'd built it up pretty high, but it for sure was going to live up to his expectations.
We zipped through Senggigi, back in familiar territory, and wound along the ocean-side road until finally arriving at San Tai's front entrance. We all hopped out in the sunlight, retrieved our packs, paid the driver (who made one final fruitless plea for more money), then followed the sand path through the ornate entrance to the small open-air front desk bamboo structure. Pearl had bad news: no vacancies. "However," she told us, "I will have room tomorrow night and you guys are first on the waiting list." She recommended a place about a quarter mile down the road that was supposedly very nice, and we promised we'd be back first thing the next morning.
I have to admit, there was discouragement on our part to be turned away, especially while we were hiking down the road, sweltering in the heat with loads on our backs. But once we saw the new place we were totally happy: nice individual cottages, great al fresco bathrooms again, comfortable beds, big porches…this was a wonderful substitution. Robert was stoked; we didn't want him to get too comfortable since we'd be moving in the morning. No time to worry about this however, as we changed into our suits and were down on the beach in no time for a morning of snorkeling and basking in the sun (Paige) and shade (Robert and me).
It had been a good couple days since we'd eaten anything even remotely decent or substantial (or that hadn't poisoned me), so it was with pure glee that we sat down at one of the clean tables in the restaurant with a pristine view of the beach and ocean in front of us. A quick round of ice cold Bin Tangs and we were complete once again. I wanted to wash my hands and quickly dashed back to our room, only to stumble on the tiled restaurant steps, effectively scraping a 2" x 2" patch of skin entirely off my heel, then proceeding to bleed a hefty pool of blood underneath my chair during the meal. This did not bode well for any potential volcano treks later in the week. To quell the pain, Robert joined me in putting away a few beers, but mixed with the morning travel and extensive snorkeling, they sent us right to our beds for an afternoon-long nap.
Just before sunset Paige came and roused me, and we went and grabbed Robert from his own cottage to head back down to the beach and catch the sunset. There's nothing like being removed from the hectic pace of the first world to get you back in touch with the sun's schedule. After it sunk completely below the horizon, we dashed out to the road before it got too dark and quickly caught a bemo into town. Paige and I were glad to have already researched and discovered the few bars that celebrated happy hour in Senggigi, and we saddled up to a large, round, open-air bar for beers that were so cold, a layer of ice floated on the meniscus in defiance to the outside heat and humidity.
We'd been doing this for weeks already, but now, with the addition of Robert, the atmosphere around town seemed…different. More friendly, more comfortable, more familiar…more ours. We were now part of the town, granted, the paying, touristy part, but we still felt like we belonged. As happy hour continued we didn't let up, briefly taking breaks to eat some rice chips, enjoy the Police and Pink Floyd on the stereo, and even watch as Robert slipped next door to the dive shop to play guitar with the local owner. (The guy only had three strings, but Robert still managed to play “Wish You Were Here;" the dude was impressed.)
Rice chips: don't know exactly what they were, but they resembled rounds of crunchy Styrofoam with a slightly fishy taste. San Tai had them in a bowl for dinner every night, so we were definitely familiar with the concept, mixing them in with rice and sauces, but you never exactly craved them or anything. I think it's just nice to be able to munch on something while you're drinking at a bar. My mom had once told me never to eat bar snacks as she'd read that something like 75% of bar snacks have urine on them from patrons visiting the toilet and not washing their hands and then enthusiastically dipping into the common snack bowl. Paige and I had started calling these babies uri-chips, reminiscing about all the uritzles, uridip, and, of course, urinuts, that we'd happily eaten throughout the years. Hopefully whatever alcohol you were putting in your mouth was killing all those urigerms before they could do any uridamage. ...(edit) Toward the end of Robert's visit, and after much discussion, we'd unanimously decided to attempt to climb Lombok’s volcano, Gunung Rinjani, a three-day trek at best. It wouldn't be easy; in fact, quite the opposite. There wouldn't be places to stay (we'd have to camp), there wasn't any water available (except for contaminated trickles from streams), there had been many violent robbings near the top of the crater (where we'd be totally removed from anyone else - days removed), and according to our LP, it was a brutal hike. Granted, we hadn't really done too much strenuous stuff since the Annapurnas, but mentally we felt we could handle just about anything, and were prepared to test our limits with perhaps the final risky excursion of our trip. Robert, on the other hand, was feeling pretty out of shape and concerned about how his body would hold up (if at all), but he also wanted to prove something to himself. It was decided: we would all be stupid together.
That night at dinner, we stayed off in a corner pondering what the next few days had in store for us. We asked Pearl hire a driver for us out to Senaru, the inland town near the base of the trail to Rinjani, where we could supposedly get help with some of the details. But once dropped off, we'd be on our own, and that was a little unsettling. No guides, no guesthouses, and potentially no interaction with anyone for days while we "tested our limits."
First thing Monday morning, with just enough time to scarf papayas and pineapples and stash some stuff we didn't need on the trek with Pearl, our ride arrived and we were whisked away north along the main road. The ride to Senaru would be around 2 hours, so we settled in with butterflies in our stomachs, gazing out at the lushness mixed with random cottages and farmland. Obviously we had no equipment, save for our backpacks and sleeping bags, but our driver assured us that everything we needed (tent, sleeping pads, pots, etc.) could easily be rented in Senaru. One request we did have was to stop at a market before we got there to pick up the food we'd need for the next few days, keeping in mind that we were going to have to lug it around until it was time to eat it.
An hour into our drive, following the dramatic northwest coast of Lombok, we stopped in a small town with a bustling outdoor market. This reinvigorated us: the food, the haggling, the people…we got caught up in the moment and temporarily forgot that we were supposed to be concerned with the next few days. But in the end, this brief bout of reality put our trek in perspective: why worry about something we knew nothing about? For all we knew, the next few days would be the greatest of the trip. And with Robert along, this should be a hilarious, fun, and incredibly unique time. The here and now…gotta stay in tune with the here and now. Soon we had our arms full with eggs, vegetables, rice and fruit (including the coolest looking of all the fruits: the Salak, which looks like a giant piece of garlic wrapped in snakeskin and tastes like an apple/pear with the consistency of a potato? Robert coined it "Snake Fruit" which seemed to be a much more appropriate name), and returned back to the van to load up and head inland.
Another hour later and we'd made it to Senaru: a quaint little town set along a ridge overlooking farmland and rice paddies, reminding us of similar scenes in Nepal. We dumped our packs at a cheap but nice (and completely empty) guesthouse with a stunning view, and immediately headed out to get some food. Senaru wasn't exactly a "town" as we would normally define it: it was a couple of guesthouses overlooking the valley with a restaurant or two, and then local farmers spread out all over the place. We liked it. Besides the fact that Senaru was a good point to start the trek up Rinjani, it was also the town nearest the waterfalls that we watned to see. Since it was already early afternoon, we agreed that the best course of action was to check out the waterfalls now, crash for the night, then take off first thing the next morning. After cleaning our nasi goreng plates, we changed into bathing suits and took off on the path leading straight down the valley.
"Wait wait wait no no no!" a little voice squeaked behind us as we passed through the gate just off the road leading down to the falls. We turned around; a boy, no older than 8, was running crazily at us in bare feet and waving his hands. Finally he reached us and held out his hand, "you must pay fee to enter." Yeah right. Nice try, I mean, do you really understand whom you're dealing with here kid? The three of us started to voice our bemused disdain when he opened the door to the ticket booth and pointed at a clear sign: 250 rupiah entrance fee. It was hard to argue with that, but still, c'mon…obviously nobody was taking tickets anymore and this kid had stumbled upon a surefire way to make money doing nothing but running across the street in bare feet. We considered stiffing him, but decided 250 rupiah (about 3 cents) wasn't going to kill us. I handed over a 1,000 note.
"No change," the kid replied. Of course. I gave him my best Ferris Bueller smile and turned down the path. "You need guide?" he yelled at our backs.
"No thanks, we're OK!" we yelled without turning around. The kid was good.
"The powah, the preshah, the fohce of the watah…it's increidible!" an Australian couple had excitedly told us back at San Tai a couple of weeks before right after they had returned from the falls. They'd managed to get in the totally secluded pool below the falls and then attempted to maneuver directly underneath them, but the force of the water had been too painful, "Lahk needles!" It all sounded awesome, and we couldn't wait to experience it for ourselves.
The path quickly turned to rough-cut stairs and we followed those all the way to the bottom - a long fifteen-minute hike. Towards the end, a roar began to build, but once at the bottom, the force of the falls was not as impressive as we had imagined. Plus, this didn't seem too secluded to us…there were naked kids playing in the water, an outhouse, picnic benches, tourist signs… We walked to the edge of the small cliff leading down to the pools to check it all out: a series of a couple falls seeping out of the jungle above and crashing about 40 feet below. Nice, but bor-ring. We'd seen better. Repeatedly. It ain’t braggin’ if it’s true.
Was this it? This was what everyone had been bragging about? What a huge disappointment…surely the real falls must be somewhere else. Optimistic beyond any available information, we walked up and down the adjoining path as far as it would go: there were no other falls. This sucked. As we stood there frustrated and helpless, the father of the local naked kids noticed our forlorn faces. “You are looking for the second waterfalls?”
“Yes…why, there are other ones?”
“Oh yes, but you must hire someone to take you there, it is too difficult to get to and there is no path.”
Screw that. No way were we walking all the way back up the side of the mountain and those stairs just to foster the gouge whitey factor. We were going to figure this thing out. Logistically, it didn’t make sense to head downstream, surely if we tried to work our way around upstream we would stumble upon them. After a couple of unsuccessful tries nearly catapulting ourselves down the side of an embankment, we finally noticed two girls with two local guides slink down the stairs and take off directly into the brush. We discretely followed behind; no need to incite any hostility from the guides. We ended up crossing a couple rivers, thick jungles, and navigating an irrigation bridge with a 40-foot drop and thin precarious rungs with no guardrails for about 25 yards. After scaling gigantic mossy and slippery boulders and plowed through thick undergrowth cutting up our arms, legs and face, we emerged on a wide rushing stream and suddenly lost their path. We wondered if this was planned, but decided they couldn’t have seen us and probably didn’t care anyway since we were so far behind and may have known the way anyway. There was nothing to do but move on.
We waded upstream precariously, scaling more boulders and slipping in waste-deep water until we began to sense something…a rumbling. A roar. We found their muddy paths and slowly moved closer to the sensation/sound. Finally, breaking through the brush and back out into the river, there it was: spectacular. The huge waterfall cascaded from 60 feet above through lush tropical bushes and vines into a clear, private pool below surrounded by steep, rocky cliffs on three sides. The sound was absolutely deafening, and the spray billowed out for over 50 yards, hitting us face on like an explosion and immediately rendering my glasses useless.
The power had apparently not interested the girls in front of us, because the second we arrived, they were pushing past us to get out of there. "Too cold!" they told us as they disappeared behind us. This was fine with us; we’d enjoy the privacy. Slowly and carefully we made our way across the stream with white noise roar consuming our thoughts and speech and the spray impact already soaking us to the bone. On a small rocky island we stripped down to our bathing suits and waded in the icy water towards the base of the falls; it was freezing, but our adrenaline pushed us forward. One by one we maneuvered, doggy paddling, our heads directly underneath an outside trickle…it felt like someone was tossing a continuous stream of stale ginger snaps directly on our scalp from 60 feet up. But it was an absolute blast. As we got used to the force, we slowly made our way directly under the brunt of the water flow, unable to breathe but laughing hysterically just the same…this was somewhere in between extreme pain and a hearty Thai massage. Wonderful.
For an hour we played around in total privacy, laughing and screaming in stifled echoes against the roar, taking turns to run, shivering, out to the island and take blind pictures into the mist, then scurry back into the pool where the familiar icy cold water warmed us up again. Truly one of the highlights, not just for Indonesia, but of the entire trip. What a rush!
Back at our hotel, we took cold showers (not by choice; by lack of choice) and changed into some clean clothes before heading a short ways up the hill to a remote, private, open-air restaurant looking out over the valley below with the ocean in the far distance. It was so incredibly beautiful there; quiet and unspoiled. Since we were, as expected, the only patrons at the restaurant, the Indian owners quickly set us up with some ice cold Bintangs and plates of mushroom spaghetti, then showed us their own personal Hindu temple on the steep hillside leading down into the valley, strewn with colorful flowers and ornate rock carvings. Very cool. They also set us up with a tent, cooking gear, stove and fuel, sleeping pads, and other assorted necessities for our journey the next morning. Seeing all that gear spread out on their tiles was not an encouraging sight: this was not going to be easy. There was a ton of stuff, and we hadn't even tossed in our sleeping bags, clothes, food or water. We'd been in denial; this dose of reality was a shocker.
There was no need to catch a big buzz-on; we would be up at the crack of dawn and hopefully on the trail before the heat settled in. We lugged all that gear back to our isolated rooms, dumped it in the corner, and hit the sack, basking in the comfort of a bed for the last time in a few days.
We were excited! We were energetic! We were ignorant. With visions of the Annapurna trails in Nepal or Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, we started off on the trail through farmlands for a good hour or so, and then passed directly into the jungle, immediately consuming us. After about 15 minutes inside, the trail changed permanently; that is to say, it disintegrated completely. We were climbing up precarious wet embankments with our hands and feet, pulling ourselves over huge crazy root systems, and laboring on the brink of passing out the entire time. And since we were deeply immersed within the confines of the impenetrable jungle, it was unbearably humid. I have never sweat so much in my entire life…combined.
It seemed to take forever to reach "pos2," a disgusting, small, dirty clearing (the first of its kind that we'd seen all day) with two ruined, tattered shelters and garbage strewn absolutely everywhere like it was a dump or something. That’s another thing about this trail: there is garbage everywhere. It's really sad. And it's not the tourists who are ruining it; it's the locals.
We were so relieved to have made it to pos2 (about 3 1/2 hours of grueling, labored climbing), that we sat down on one disgusting corner of one of the shelters with flies swarming the air to make up a round of tuna sandwiches. But it was already 1:00 PM and the mist had begun to roll in, slowly claiming everything in its wake. Sweat was quickly freezing on our bodies, and our sopping clothes from head to foot didn't help matters at all. Even though we were dead tired, we agreed to saddle up and attempt to reach pos3 before we camped for the night. Just couldn't imagine staying in this dump overnight…
Immediately, we settled back into the insane trail: incredibly laborious and very, very difficult. Hell, really. But we eventually made it in 2 1/2 hours and found ourselves in another horrible, disgusting and polluted clearing with two run-down shacks, garbage everywhere, and burning heaps of rotting filth and shit smoldering throughout. It depressed us; we couldn't sleep here. Plus, the monkeys were everywhere, scavenging and shrieking hysterically whenever we got too close. We rested for 10 minutes and were off again.
But the next 5 minutes of hiking/climbing was particularly hellacious, and when we found a tiny clearing just large enough to fit a tent and a fire off to the side a little ways, we happily decided to stop there for the night. Robert built a fire (or tried to all night with only wet wood as fuel) while Paige put up the tent and I cooked dinner. We had only brought four bottles of water with us (really all we could carry), and all four were nearly gone by this time due to the amount of water we were quickly losing in sweat. Paige and I hiked back to pos3 where our LP indicated there should be a stream down the side of the mountain nearby.
Back through the heaps of garbage and monkeys; we scanned the thick hillside for any indication of a path, eventually giving up and plowing through it all. It was obvious that besides the immense amount of garbage around pos3, people had been tossing garbage down the jungle-hill too, and we were forced to pile right through it all in the hopes that a clear gushing stream would meet us at the bottom. Instead, what met us at the bottom was a couple of stagnant, repulsive, brackish pools of water where a stream might have run in the wet season…some wet season, and maybe a long time ago. But we had no choice; we filled up the bottles, attempting, unsuccessfully, not to include the bugs, scum and filth, then climbed back to camp with a brief interlude catching the incredible sunset through the trees, salvaging the moment in a big way. We iodined and boiled the shit out of that water, but it still ended up brown, opaque and chunky…not the qualities you look for in drinking water. But what can you do? You have to drink.
Soon, we grew tired of trying to hit scavenging monkeys with rocks and sticks as we sat shivering in the evening mist, wet, tired and fairly miserable (half-cooked plain rice and Oreos don't exactly do a body good), and decided to hit the sack. Our two-man tent did not inspire uninterrupted (or any) sleep for the three of us, and a long night ensued. In the morning, we managed to whip up some eggs and thick coffee, and were back on the path by 7:30 AM. Within an hour, we had broken through the jungle for good, but the path never got easy; it was absolute hell. We climbed up through grasslands, over a gigantic ridge, scaled a long volcanic rock hill, and hiked around the rim until we suddenly realized we had finally reached the top of the crater. There were a lot of clouds deep down on the inside of the lip, but they were constantly shifting and we were able to catch brief glimpses of the spectacular lake and inner cone rising up within the middle of the active volcano (last erupted 5 years ago). Truly the most beautiful lake I'd ever laid eyes on.
From this vantage point we could see the jungle we'd spent the past day and a half plowing through, inland Lombok, the ocean way off in the distance, and then the inside of the crater in the exact opposite direction. A couple of groups had set up tents right here on the rim and Paige suggested we do the same, but neither Robert nor I wanted to deal with the noise or theft potential; we wanted privacy. We agreed to carry all our gear with us down in the crater and decide once we get to the hot springs (our goal) if we were going to camp inside or come back out for the night. We precariously started climbing through some rocks with a large group of locals kicking back nearby who spotted us and began laughing and taunting us for some unknown reason. Not wanting to fuel any potential fire, we ignored them, but it was clear we didn’t know which way to go.
“That way!” they all started ranting and pointing; how could we not be skeptical of their help? But the “path” had ended…we finally decided to follow their lead, and there was nothing to do but start climbing down hand over hand over some treacherous terrain. We needed ropes and crampons, not shoes and heavy backpacks. After five minutes of extreme struggling, the group behind us began laughing at the top of their lungs and cursing us both in their local language and English. Apparently they’d had a laugh at our expense watching us go the completely wrong way, and now were topping it off by rubbing salt in our open wounds. Fuckers. We had neither the time nor the energy to deal with these losers (or to try to understand what their problem was), so with a brief wave of our middle fingers, we went down the “right” way.
We literally had to do some low grade rock climbing to get down to the lake: a two-hour trial made even more difficult by our huge heavy packs. Balancing our bodies in rock crevices as we scaled 8-10 foot freefall drops, climbing hand over foot straight down then straight up over and over again…after 36 hours of pure hell, this was not what our bodies needed to recover. Still, the views were ridiculously phenomenal, and we couldn't wait to reach the bottom of the crater. Once at the lake, we hiked around the edge for an hour and through some grassland to the hot springs off to one side. These are a series of waterfalls and pools, really extensive and really beautiful, which appear like a beacon after all that hell. All we wanted to do was strip down and soak our weary bodies, deciding on a particularly large pool down a ways where the temperature was perfectly hot but not scalding.
We stripped to our suits and waded in: instantly healing and relaxing…even in the hot sun. Our bodies were throbbing in pain, and Robert's feet were in bad shape, made even more grotesque by the prunish effects of staying too long underwater. After about an hour or so, we dried off and walked over to an isolated grassy ridge and tossed our packs on the ground. Nearby we found a fresh water source and quickly filled all our empty bottles, tossed in iodine pills, and counted down the ten-minute waiting period to the second before sucking down an entire liter and a half each in about three seconds before refilling them one more time. The ultimate in dehydration.
Suddenly ravenous, we made cheese sandwiches in the grass and napped for a while in the soothing winds whistling through the enormous crater. The day was getting late and we needed to decide what we were going to do soon. If we stayed down here, tomorrow we'd be faced with climbing back up the crater followed by a full trek all the way back to Senaru…a daunting task. If we sacked up and made one final push back up the crater today, tomorrow appeared doable. Exploiting masochism to its fullest extent, we opted to get going again and shave some hell off of tomorrow's jaunt.
Three more hours back up to the top at a time when we had no reserve energy left, and we were ecstatic to crest that final rim. But somehow we had retained a positive frame of mind throughout this last little bit, taking advantage of a couple of key photo opportunities with the smoking cone surrounded by the lake in the background as we wound along the lake before heading straight up again. We saw few people, but at one point we passed three Norwegian guys going down, and five minutes later came across a gigantic fresh turd strategically released in the middle of the thin, faint path. Paige was incensed and was ready to run back down to them with it wrapped in a (extra large) banana leaf to throw it in their faces, but, while Robert and I were intrigued with this picture, we only wanted to get to the top. Save the venom for the rock climbing.
Once at the top we were thoroughly spent, but again decided to push on a ways to forgo a night in the dirt with half a dozen other tents (not to mention the a-hole pack of locals, wherever they may be at this point), and find an isolated grassy ridge outcrop we'd seen on the way up. We were really tired as we continued down in the falling light, which is exactly the reason why I made a stupid mistake on the volcanic rock scree and fell, bouncing twice over a ledge and rolling out of control on the shards below. As I fell, visions of having to be airlifted out of there with compound fractures filled my head, and when I finally came to a stop I was more afraid of what I would find rather than what I would feel. But thankfully, I was only torn and bloodied: no broken bones. Not that it would have mattered anyway; I was so damn tired I couldn’t feel anything but the need to sleep.
We settled on a remote peninsula cliff, basically sheltered on three sides by shear drops straight down, and set the tent up on beachball-sized mounds of grass; there was no flat area anywhere. It does not look comfortable. It's getting really cold too, although the views over Lombok are stunning and well worth the extra trek. We're above the clouds and the sunset is unreal. A "dinner" of beans and corn topped off with ramen noodles, and that’s about as much as these bodies can do in a day.
But what a sense of accomplishment! We really pushed ourselves the past two days and it feels wonderful to know we did it all ourselves. Pride, relief, happiness, joy…emotions are running the full gamut tonight, and the thought of walking back into Senaru and ordering up a cold celebration beer is beautiful. Top that off with the reality that once we return to Senggigi, we'll have three wonderful days of doing nothing but relaxing at San Tai before our flights to the U.S. (and on to Chile), and it's enough to make one crumble in blessed anticipation. All three of us, we really have done a fantastic job.
You noticed back there that I said we could sleep "almost" anywhere. If there was one place on the planet where the exception came into play, this was the place. Besides the beachballs, the tent was on a severe slope, and attempting to maneuver one's body in a two man tent with three people on a slope with beach ball-sized tufts of grass underneath and near freezing wind penetrating what little space did exist inside the tent was…impossible. You couldn't remain in any one position for longer than 5-10 minutes without a lump causing havoc on a limb, torso or muscle, and the constant reshuffling bustle was enough to scare the monkeys away (not that they’d come this high though - thankfully).
For hour after endless hour we were in hell, attempting pitifully to drift off for five to ten minutes at a time, but always crashing back to painful reality. Our faces would end up a scant inch or two from each other, inciting breathing competitions to see who would move first. It was getting really ugly. We were all praying for dawn to come…in our own way. Before it did though, we were all still wide-awake and freezing, ready to give it a shot and leave right then. I kept wondering why my feet were so damn cold and wet, and it wasn’t until it started getting light that I realized why: my body had slid down and my legs from the knees down were sticking out of the tent and directly in the icy wind and thick, wet fog (the zipper on the tent didn’t work). We were tired, sore and without sleep, but excited to be near the end of it all, so we boiled some water for coffee and then just packed up and were off before the sun was officially up.
We later heard that that very night bandits wielding machetes attacked the hikers who were sleeping at the crest. The thieves slit through all the tents, forced everyone outside, stripped them down, and then stole everything everyone had. Chilling. We couldn’t imagine the fear those hikers must have had, although we could taste our good fortune in pushing ourselves further down the mountain. We had little doubt that the bandits were in some way associated with the people who had been screwing with us on our way down inside the crater…
The climb “down” is always equally as difficult as “up,” but in a different way because you use totally different muscles and inevitably always underestimate the effort. For hours we plodded downward, not able to move quickly because we were constantly climbing down steep embankments, scaling thick root systems, and using our hands just as much as our legs, but as we passed known landmarks (our thieving monkey campsite, pos3, rest stops), motivation both increased and came crashing back down to the ground as we realized how truly far we still had to go. With many rests, we finally stumbled into pos2 around 10 AM and tossed our packs on the ground. With any luck we should be back in Senaru in less than 3 hours, and that thought brought a warm chill to our hearts.
This was the perfect opportunity to put the last of our food in our stomachs, and we carefully unpacked our bag of eggs to see if any had survived the past couple days: success! As I set up the stove and revved up the heat, I concentrated every remaining ounce of strength on the task at hand; it was the only way I wasn’t going to pass out on my face. Surprisingly, pos2 was crowded with trekkers resting on the way up. We didn’t envy them, although even through our pain we knew the beauty of Rinjani would remain with us forever. But I didn’t even raise my head to look around; in fact, I was zoning so much that I didn’t notice when one guy broke off from his group, came over, and squatted right in front of me, staring at my face.
“Chris Farrell?”
My mind contorted in pure unassimilated confusion. I looked up and gawked; I was nowhere near a people recognition zone, so even though I recognized the face, my mind was unable to bridge the astonishment gap that I could bump into someone I knew way out here. A full ten seconds passed as my mind cranked up to full speed, and then it hit me: Paul Curley (a childhood friend). I fell back on my ass in pure disbelief. Wow! He explained that he and his wife were on their honeymoon and had heard from my mom that we would be in Indonesia the same time they were…not that Indonesia doesn’t cover more of the earth’s surface than any other country or anything…but here we were, bumping into each other on perhaps the most random spot on the planet: immersed in the jungle on the side of a volcano on a tiny island in the Pacific. Again, wow. This beat bumping into that Japanese guy on top of Masada by a thousand.
We all talked in amazement for about an hour, introducing our wives (and Robert), as we tried to play down the nightmarish past couple days since they were still on their way up, and after a quick round of pictures we were all on our way again. A truly random and amazing thing. What more can be said about it? As we started hiking again, my mind still couldn’t fully comprehend what had happened, and I spent the next hour in a daze trying to come back down to reality.
As we got closer and closer, or so we thought, we must have had twenty different false exits from the jungle. That is, we were sure on twenty different occasions that the next bend would be the one that burst us back out into the grasslands again, but always it went on and on. Agonizing, more so on our minds than on our already defeated bodies. And when we finally did break through the jungle, our false sense of being on the verge of the end of the path nearly drove us crazy…it would still be another 45 minutes of fast trekking. We were nearly running by the time we actually did hit the pavement, and spread out a good couple hundred yards in between the three of us. I looked at my watch: just after 1 PM, not bad. We’d been fantasizing about beer and water (all out since pos2) for so long, our dehydrated bodies couldn’t even muster up a sweat anymore. There, strategically placed for the enjoyment of all trekkers was a blessed restaurant with open tables and happy beer signs. We nearly cried with relief.
Our fantasies had been crystal clear: the second we finished, we envisioned three condensation-laden bottles of crisp, bottled water lined up in front of 3 giant, ice cold bottles of Bintang. We would suck down the water without stopping, thus quenching our base human need, and then top it off with repeated series of beer gulps, literally feeling the carbonation and alcohol sending an immediate buzz to our overstimulated brains. What a wonderful dream. But when we sat down and ordered up “3 waters and 3 beers,” we had the unfortunate foresight of asking the price before the order was final. Habit I guess. When he told us beers were 15,000 rupiah each (we’d been paying around 4,000), our plans disintegrated in front of our eyes.
“That’s insane,” I managed to get out, “we could walk a short ways down the road and get them for 4,000 each!” He shrugged his shoulders. This was not good. “Look, we’ll give you 15,000 for three beers, OK? That’s more than you should be charging anyway and we’ll pay it as a compromise.” He was not amused.
He tossed a menu on the table. “They are 15,000 each. No less,” he said in his best Soup Nazi impersenation, and turned around and stormed off. I opened the menu; sure enough, beers were priced at 15,000. This was insane! No matter how badly we needed those liquids and how long we’d been dreaming about them, we couldn’t in good conscience fork out such extortionary amounts.
It took a lot to force our bodies back upright and strap on our packs again, but Robert’s, “Gotta GOUGE WHITEY around here. Always gougin’ whitey!” comment recited loud enough for everyone within a hundred yard radius to hear seemed to lessen the pain a little. Reality softens the blow. Wonderfully, we only had to wait about fifteen minutes for the next bemo to make its way out to the end of the road, and five minutes after that we were expertly dumped in front of the pristine open-air Hindu restaurant where we plopped down at a table and quickly downed our fully-fantasized round of liquids, even adding an extra round of beers as reward for sticking to our guns in the face of the whitey-gouging.
It felt so good to know we were done and had conquered the volcano. We basked in our shared glory, and it defined a moment for the rest of our lives. We were in high spirits as we scarfed another plate of mushroom spaghetti and waved over another round of Bintangs. Our driver expertly showed up at 3:00, just on time, and soon we were snoozing as we whizzed back to Senggigi and the inviting perfection of San Tai’s cottages. Before we could compute everything that had occurred that day, we had scrubbed three days worth of filth and sweat off our bodies under our cold jug-showers, and were relaxing on our bamboo porches with cold Carlsbergs and the guitar. Every once in a while we’d catch a look from one another and smile knowingly: we’d conquered together. It was an amazing feeling.
Diligently we tried to wait out a brief rainstorm at our appointed sunset hour, but eventually we decided the porch, more beer, and a few cloves sounded like a better option. More basking. Somehow we managed to drag ourselves to dinner, bemused by the entirely new crowd that had taken over San Tai in the Germans’ absence as well as ours…if they only knew…about Toilet Girl, that is. But our exhaustion and contented spirits seemed to keep us from participating in any grandiose conversation, and we bailed out before anyone else because we were only feeling close to each other. Still more basking.
After dinner, Paige couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer and hit the sack while Robert and I took beers down to the water’s edge to talk on his last night here. He would be taking a prop plane back to Bali the next morning and picking up his flight to San Francisco from there. We, on the other hand, had three more days of San Tai before doing the same, only we’d be ending up in Chile.
It had been so great to have Robert here to share these incredible adventures, both the unbelievable highs and the unbearable lows, and it said a lot about our friendship that he came. We shared a moment, an incredible two-week long moment, in each other’s lives, totally separate from the responsibilities, relationships, and expectations of our existences back home. We’d been out here on this island, both literally and figuratively, attacking the unknown, and conquering together. Robert waxed philosophical about his own pride of breaking through personal barriers that he didn’t even know he had until now. Similar to my own revelation post-Kilimanjaro, he had no idea that he could accomplish something so incredible as the past few days, and the reality that it was inside of him was deep. I shared his joy. We toasted each other, gazed out on the moonlit waves, and basked in the here and now. Always bask in that here and now; it’s gone in an instant.
The next morning, we couldn’t help but notice that Robert hadn’t come over to join us for breakfast on our porch as he usually did. We wandered over with our plates of fresh fruit to see him laid out on some cushions, unmoving and groaning. “You OK? What’s up?” I asked.
“You know that Asian-style squat toilet I’ve got here?” he told us; he had stayed the night in one of the two-story cottages separate from the regular cottages, and therefore with a different type of al fresco bathroom.
“Uh oh,” I responded to no one in particular, “I don’t like where this is going.”
“Well, I squatted, but then I couldn’t get up again. All my muscles went out in my legs and I just about passed out right there over the hole in the ground.”
“Breakfast?” I asked without any further discussion. I too felt his pain; I just didn’t need my own spent muscles to be getting any ideas. Right after we finished eating, Robert was packed up, cleanly showered, and ready to go. We had a heartfelt, sad goodbye in the manicured, sandy jungle, already sweating in the morning heat, and watched as he crawled in the van and waved back to us as it pulled out of the front gate and headed off down the road. Alone again. And those two words brought about a million different memories and images crashing back down on our heads. We were alone again, and we still had three more weeks of adventures left. No time to get down or sad; we’d see Robert and our families and friends in almost no time. We had to rejoin the action out here on the road and move forward, always forward. With a quick huddle, we solidified our 3-day plan to put us back on the right track: do absolutely nothing but bask in our own decrepit laziness. Oh yeah baby. |
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