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A few days ago I went to climb Merapi. We left Yogi at 10pm to Selo, a village on its slopes at just below 1500 meters in altitude. At 1am we began to climb in the darkness. We had to go up around another 1500 meters, which is on the sizeable side of climbs when compared to those around Rockies at home. Our guide said we'd have to make a call at about the 1000 meter mark of our trip as to whether to try for the summit, as weather can change drastically at that point. On our drive up to Selo, we'd gone through some torrential rain, so things were uncertain.
Although we were climbing in the dark by headlamp, I could tell we were in heavy cloud as the air was damp and the beam of the lights showed heavy mist.
OK, a small aside int the story here: I'm typing this on the front porch of my room in the yard of a homestay and 'grandma' just suddenly appeared from out of the shower stall - topless. Well, to be fair, I guess I haven't got my shirt on right now, either, so it is what it is.
Anyhow, so we reached a plateau at the 1000 meter mark of our climb in heavy mist and at times you could hear gusts of strong wind up higher. Our guide stopped for his second cigarette of the trip, so I was unsure if this meant that we'd be continuing or not. He was bundled up in a waterproof jacket, full balaclava on his head, and gloves. It was not close to freezing, but certainly was much cooler and stopping too long led you to get fairly cold in the damp air.
Another group that we'd passed arrived and after a quick break, set off again climbing. Our guide got up as well, so it looked like we'd be going!
Shortly after, I could tell that we'd left all trees behind and were on solid rock. Eventually it began to light up and I could see without the headlamp. But it was still a whiteout and we were in thick cloud. At points, I could feet that the rock was warm and pockets of steamy air streamed by me. From that point, we went only about 10 more minutes and arrived at the summit. It was difficult to see much of anything, or to even get a feel for what the terrain around looked like with the cloud. We snapped a few photos and settled in to wait as the guides said that there was a chance things could clear up.
After about a half hour, we were indeed rewarded for our patience. The clould began to thin, and swirl, giving us short glimpses of the terrain around us. Steam billowed from huge vents around the crater rim. Below, a thicker layer of cloud below us blocked much of the view to the base, except in small patches where I could see the lush green valley far below. Many photos were snapped as we hung out for over an hour to enjoy.
We were back down just before 9am and headed back to Yogi. Despite missing a night of sleep I felt OK, so planned to take a 2-hour trip to Borodobur, the site of some of Javas most significant Buddhist ruins, where I'd spend the night. Before leaving, I wanted to book my flight back to Bali for the next evening, so went to the internet to do that. The airline website said that since the flight was within 48 hours, they would not accept online credit card payment and I'd have to make a payment from an ATM. I'd never heard of doing this sort of thing, but set off with all my luggage to the nearest ATMs.
I found one that had a payment option, but couldn't find the airline in the list of payees. I tried about three other ATMs and couldn't even get an option to make this sort of payment. I only had three hours to do this before the airline cancelled my reservation. I began to rush down the busy streets in the mid-afternoon heat carrying all my luggage, scrambling to find an ATM that would work.
No luck. I begain to look for a full bank, where I could go in and ask for help, but none were around the area. Plus, apparently they were all close to closing as it was a Friday.
After an hour and a half, I was exhausted. I decided to try calling the airline to find out the scoop. They don't really have proper phone books here, so it's tough to find a phone number. A guy at a hotel was nice enough to try calling information to get the number. We tried it but there was no answer. We hunted around and followed a trail of no less than eight or nine phone numbers, none of which worked. This took about another half an hour, so I realized that it just wasn't going to work.
I decided to go to a travel agent shop that I'd noticed near the very first ATM and have them try to book it for me. At first they only found a flight priced nearly double what I'd found on the internet, but when I mentioned that they actually found the same flight price and booked it for cheaper that the internet price - leaving out the service charge that even the website charged! Odd.
Anyhow, drained, I caught the bus to Borodobur, which was of course another adventure with about a half hour of extra walking with my luggage.
It seems rainy season has arrived in Java. We've had short downpours several times over the days, and the day of my flight out after Borodobur was very rainy. I think I got my travels in Java done in the nick of time and was lucky to be able to do everything I wanted.
I'm now back in Bali, and will hang out for five days until my flight out to Thailand.
Hopefully grandma doesn't shower every day.
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