Day 1 — Sem­balun to the Base Camp

I met my fel­low trek­kers, a dutch couple named Robin and Ingrid, at 6 am, when we were all picked up in Sen­g­gigi. It was almost 8 am, when we finally arrived in Sen­aru, where we were intro­duced to Mursan, our guide, and Mordi, our porter for the trip. When we repacked our bags I noticed that Robin and Ingrid were equipped with the best gear money can buy. Well, it only made sense, con­sid­er­ing that they had been to Mount Everest Base Camp and on the sum­mit of Kili­man­jaro. Nev­er­the­less, I felt a bit inad­equate with my Nike train­ers and my flimsy rain­coat. After a yummy break­fast of banana pan­cakes and tea we set off in a bemo to Sem­bu­lan, the start­ing point of our little adven­ture. There we first checked in at the Rinjani Ranger Cen­ter and then short before 10 am we star­ted walk­ing. The first hour was fairly easy, first through rice fields and then later through open coun­tryside. When the forest star­ted it got notice­ably steeper and thus harder.

We kept on walk­ing on tiny trails, across small bridges, that spanned deep crevices, and through high and dense pas­ture until about 12 pm. We had just a little break with water and crack­ers and then we were off again. By then the clouds star­ted to come closer and it star­ted to drizzle. Vis­ib­il­ity dropped to some­times just 20 meters. Robin had pulled a leg muscle earlier on, so both him and his wife kept fall­ing behind, but Mursan kept the pace up as we had to get to Base Camp before Sun­set. Around 2 pm we had a quick lunch of noodle soup, tea and fruits in a dried river­bed below a bridge. When we star­ted off again Mursan told me to go with Mordi, because I could climb faster that way. In the begin­ning it wasn’t a prob­lem keep­ing up with our porter. But as it got steeper and time passed I grew very tired. It was really amaz­ing watch­ing Mordi climb like a moun­tain goat with his flip flops and 30 kg on his shoulder. I don’t know how he or the other port­ers do it. Any­way, he let me catch up every half hour or so and we made it to Base Camp, about three hours from the sum­mit, around 5.30 pm.

Robin and Ingrid finally arrived one hour later and went straight to bed after din­ner. I stayed up for about another hour and drank tea and smoked indone­sian kretek with Mursan and Mordi. Around 8 pm I then crawled into my sleep­ing bed and fell asleep within one minute.

Day 2 — Base Camp — Sum­mit — Crater Lake — the Rim

My alarm woke me up far too early at 2.30 am. Mordi was awake already, get­ting the fire going and mak­ing tea. Half an hour later just Mursan and me set off to climb to the top of Rinjani. I was just car­ry­ing my cam­era, water and a small torch. The way up from the camp to the rim was extremely hard going. It is dark, very steep and the path is covered in loose gravel and earth. Once we were on the rim it didn’t really get any easier. Then, after about two hours into the trek I twis­ted my left knee. I tried to keep going for another 10 minutes, but even­tu­ally I wasn’t able to put any pres­sure on it any­more. I told Mursan and he said that we just rest where we are, watch the sun­rise and then climb down once it is light. So we curled up behind a rock and tried to sleep. This was prob­ably the cold­est hour in my entire life, but I did sleep a bit. The sun­rise was amaz­ing, but I dreaded the climb down. Every single step hurt. I had to keep my left leg straight the whole time to be able to stand on it, so walk­ing was very awk­ward. Finally, at 7.30 am we arrived back at the camp.

In my tent I took a few paink­illers and rubbed tiger balm into my left knee. Then after we’ve had break­fast and packed up our gear we star­ted the dif­fi­cult climb down to the lake. While me knee really hurt at the begin­ning it star­ted to numb up a bit after a while, which helped a lot get­ting down the rocky and nar­row path. But still, after about two hours I was in pure agony. I could only climb down about 30 meters and then I had to apply some tiger balm again. It was only dur­ing those breaks that I could enjoy the amaz­ing scenery that was laid out before us. We could see the whole lake, a water­fall, a kind of yel­low river and just the sheer beauty of the moun­tain. After about three hours the land star­ted to flat­ten out until we got to the lake. There we had some food, relaxed a bit, watched the fish­er­men, had a look at the hot springs and set out again at 2 pm.

First we fol­lowed the lakeside for a bit, then I headed off with Mordi again. Right at the start he found me a walk­ing stick, which allowed me to take some pres­sure off my knee. After a while I just wanted to get to the top. I wasn’t really look­ing at my sur­round­ings any­more. It took me three hours to climb the 600 meters alti­tude to the rim on the Sen­aru side and then another 45 minutes down to our camp site.

Day 3 — Camp to Senaru

When I woke up I felt a lot bet­ter than the even­ing before. Short before going to bed I had taken some more paink­illers and rubbed half the tub of tiger balm on my knee and then kept it as warm as pos­sible dur­ing the night. When we set off the sun was shin­ing and we didn’t have to do any more climb­ing. From here it was just down­hill all the way to Sen­aru, where a bemo would be wait­ing for us. The mood was great. I set out again with Mordi and we chat­ted a bit about his fam­ily, work and life in gen­eral. The first hour we just walked through open land. Then we slowly entered the forest again. At a little ber­uga we waited for the oth­ers. Robins muscle pain had got­ten so bad that Mordi had to carry his back­pack as well as all his own stuff. He wasn’t com­plain­ing, I guess he’s had to do it before. He just put it on top of his bam­boo con­struc­tion and star­ted walk­ing again. I have a lot of respect for all the guides and port­ers that work on Rinjani. Most of them do this trip or a sim­ilar one actu­ally twice a week dur­ing the whole high sea­son from May to Octo­ber. We arrived very tired but happy back in Sen­aru around 1 pm. We gave Mursan and Mordi a huge tip, said good­bye and then were driven to our next des­tin­a­tions. The Gilis for Robin and Ingrid and Mataram for me.