“What happens on the mountain, stays on the mountain…”

Greg: I'd like to introduce our guest bloggers, Tamira Sawatzky, Cynthia's sister, and Elle Flanders, Tamira's wife. They offered to write the blog following our ascent of Mount Rinjani on December 1st. I've added the photos and captions. Enjoy.

The cast: John, Tamira, Elle, Max, Mansur and Greg. Cynthia and Thomas sat this one out.

"What happens on the mountain, stays on the mountain..."

Tamira:

We agreed to this mantra after certain expletives were uttered near the top of the crater rim of Mount Rinjani, the second highest mountain in Indonesia and our final destination in a 2 day trek we undertook a few days ago. Having said that, this wouldn’t be much of a story if I didn’t describe at least a little of our adventure:

But first of all, how did we get to this mantra? What would provoke such a mysterious statement invoking both images of Las Vegas and Heart of Darkness? Well, let me start by saying, that Elle and I take full responsibility for this escapade, having naively decided that a mountain trek seemed like a good idea as part of our post-Bali vacation in Indonesia. The trek was advertised as ‘beginner level’, a mere 2 day hike to the crater rim, and back, of Mount Rinjani where the view of an active volcano island amidst an aquamarine alpine lake is the stunning prize for your efforts. This line was echoed by Suja, our agent who greeted us as we got off the boat from Bali, explaining to us in the car ride to our hotel at the mountain base, how they had just taken up a group of Chinese 6-year olds. “Very easy”, he said, “No problem for you!”

Elle:

Well, in retrospect I am glad we had no idea that we had signed up for the ‘TREK FROM HELL’ because it would have definitely ruined our blissed-out time in Bali, knowing what lay ahead. What we didn’t really realize, was that the trek was essentially a vertical climb for nine hours. Apparently this is a piece of cake for anyone in decent physical condition (especially Chinese six year olds), but we knew we were in trouble when we had hiked for an hour and a half to arrive exhausted at ‘Position 1’ only to be told by Mr. Mansur, our tiny but buff mountain guide: “ok, now we go 6 hours through the jungle!” But surely it couldn’t be as steep as what we had just done? I mean it felt like we had already climbed Masada. “Mr. Mansur, we asked, “Will it be steep or flat?” He smiled, “yes, up, up”.

Our porters at the entrance to the national park.

Six more hours.

Tamira:

At this point, knowing we hadn’t really even begun, I nearly burst into tears, but thankfully we had my 70-year old father and 12-year old nephew to shame me into some composure. I mustered up my inner Menno, elle suppressed her inner Jewish kvetch and we hauled ourselves up that mountain. At first we tried distract ourselves from the grueling slog by taking an interest in the flora and fauna around us. After all, Suja had promised us a mountain guide akin to a botanist with a post-doc in zoology. We kept hearing an alluring birdcall from the depths of the jungle. “What kind of bird makes that sound Mr. Mansur?” we asked. “Hmmmmm….that bird is blue.”

‘Mr. Mansur, we asked while resting at Position 3, what kind of monkeys are those? “Those are just regular monkeys, he said, ……but very aggressive, different from other monkeys, black ones.” To be honest though, our interest in the environment rapidly waned as we focused on the 3 feet in front of us so as to not trip over the relentless tangle of roots that formed our path.

The relentless tangle of roots.

A regular monkey with baby.

Elle:

So ‘up, up’ we went and much to Tamira’s consternation, I felt the need to ask Mr Mansur if the next section would also be up? ‘More steeper’ he would answer cheerfully. Glancing ahead at Max and Greg, I tried to detect hints of exertion. “Tired?” I would ask Max, as he would plonk-down waiting for me to pull-up the rear. ‘No’ he would say, ‘but my ear hurts a little’ (note that Max managed to hop up the mountain with A. an ear infection and B. having thrown-up his breakfast an hour before). So I put that in my bag of Menno behaviours to call on when in need of a kvetch. “Max, what’s the hypotenuse of a radius of a falling object greater than the other” (or something like that, not exactly being a Mathlete myself), Greg would ask apparently not in need of extra oxygen we so desperately sought out. “uh, I think it’s four to the power of 12,000?” And so it would go. Luckily, even if we lost site of Greg and Max, we knew they weren’t far away as we heard quadratic equations and astrophysics emanating from somewhere in the thick of the jungle.

I held the camera level for this photo.

Tamira:

Meanwhile, Dad was just soldiering on, somewhere between the algebra up ahead and me and elle, with Mr. Mansur waiting behind. You see, I have never worried about Dad, aka Grizzly Adams, who most recently impressed us with becoming violently ill 40 feet underwater yet refused to disrupt his scuba lesson. However, even Dad admitted, (but only later on our way down) during a torrential jungle rainstorm, that this was ‘miserable’ which was therefore oddly comforting, reassuring us we weren’t the only ones wishing we were drinking G&T’s beside the pool.

However, after a certain point there was literally no turning back and we committed to the final push to the top. After all, there was the spectacular view of the volcanic lake that we had come all this way for. We saw Max, Dad and Greg ahead of us at the cliff edge pointing excitedly with beaming faces. As we stumbled to the precipice, we looked down into the crater. What did we see? Nothing, because as we pulled in, so did the clouds, and all we saw was a vast fog. “You just missed it….”, Greg said, nervously giving us the news. “Well”, I said, trying to put a sunny face on it, “the main thing is that we made it, right honey?”. Apparently those words were of little comfort and I won’t repeat what was then said back….

Above the clouds and above the tree line.

Elle:

I’ll be happy to repeat them (well what’s fit for print that is, right Max?!) I recall saying something to the effect of “I think I’m going to cry.” So as my not-so-brave face would have it, tears welling-up inside my achy, tired body, the fog slowly began to lift, the sun peeped out, and low and behold, a massive volcanic lake appeared below glistening in the morning sun. It was truly something. Phew. After about ten minutes of awe however, Mr. Mansur looked at us and said: “ok, enough now? You saw it, let’s go.”

Elle surveys the mist.

After the clouds parted.

We’ll spare you the details of climbing down that bloody mountain, suffice it to say like Winnie-the-Pooh, I went bumpity bump down the mountain for 7 hours. After the fifth hour of descent, along with the torrential tropical downpour, came the leeches. Yup, you heard it, blood-sucking leeches! John’s lecture on their historical-medicinal value fell on deaf ears as Mr. Mansur burned them off with his endless cigarettes. I think that’s where I pretty much knew I was ‘done’ and that perhaps mountain trekking wasn’t my sport.

Tamira:

A day later, after fresh laundry, clean sheets and completely flat topography, we were restored. Unable to walk of course, but ambulatory enough to make it over to the spa for a massage. In the end, three days of recovery in a posh resort made up for most of it and the bragging rights for the rest. While Max went on to conquer surfing and rest of the Speisers planned their next trek in Sumatra, we sipped our Mojitos poolside marveling that we actually made it – oh yes we did!

The whiny kvetching expressed above belongs solely to the authors and are their opinions alone.

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