Climbing Gunung Marapi Volcano
Volcanoes have always been something that have been of great interest to me, I have no idea why but I am just fascinated by them. So when I was in Bukittinggi I finally got the chance to climb one. I am not at all a healthy or fit person and can barely breathe after running for a bus, so I obviously have no idea what I was in for. The climb to the summit (2000m) was about 4 hours, depending on fitness and apparently it wasn’t too hard. We left at 11pm so we would be at the top for sunrise. At first the climb wasn’t too bad but as we went higher up the volcano it got steeper and steeper and it was so dark I could hardly see and my head torch really wasn’t doing the job! It got so steep that in the end I was just grabbing whatever tree or bush or root that was in front of me to stop me falling! I had to stop every 60 seconds for a break as I was so out of breath.
As we got out of the jungle part of the climb we reached the rocky part and the rocks slipped under my feet as I climbed and there was nothing to hold on to so I was on all fours trying not to freak out (I’m scared of heights), everyone else was apparently not finding it as challenging as I was….except my sister, who was just as bad as I was. It stared to get lighter as the sun started to rise and I realised how high up we were which made it all the more scary. Finally we reached the top and it was freezing! There were huge craters and black smoke bellowing out. The view above the clouds was brilliant and the towns below looked so far away. I thought there would be more at the top but apart from a few rocks, a couple of craters and some smoke, there wasn’t much else!
It look me 6 hours to get up and even longer to get down as I have old knee injuries on both knees that were aggravated by the rocky terrain on the way down! It was an experience, but I don’t think I that ever felt so much pain for so long in my life and it took my knees months to heal but I am glad I did it - I will be more prepared next time and definitely think about it in more detail before I make any rash decisions!
January 29th, 2008 at 9:31 am
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February 6th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
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