Another day, another trip to Bali. Yep,
Bali has become a familiar place to us. What’s not to like? Good food, good
accommodation, wine, sun, beaches, and a quick 1.5-hr flight away. We can be on
the beach by noon. Hmm, I guess that’s why it’s famous….go figure! Although,
like everywhere else on the planet, I fear we humans are loving it to death.
Monthly tourist stats are in the order of half a million tourist arrivals per
month (i.e., 6+ million a year). This is an island the size of P.E.I. (for you
non-Canadians: PEI = Prince Edward Island, Canada). And that’s on top of the
4.2 million Balinese who live there (PEI population = 146 thousand). That’s a
lot of people, garbage, electricity, and of course, poo (where does it all go?
I don’t want to think about it).
OK, so what are we doing in Bali this time?
The short answer: Robillard family round-up. The long answer is that Amy’s
family (the Robillard’s: Amy’s parents, sister, brother-in-law, and new baby
Ava) endured the gruelling 30-hr journey from Canada to visit us here in
Indonesia. Now, Bogor, where we live, despite its charms, isn’t really what one
thinks of for a tropical holiday. Kind of like a German tourist spending their
two weeks in Canada in the suburbs of Edmonton. Something about the concrete,
rain, and traffic that just says “maybe we should just meet in Bali?” Sounds
good! 
Amy’s legendary internet sleuthing skills
found yet another sweet accom set-up, involving a full villa with pool and
daily cleaning staff, near the beach, in the town of Sanur. What’s a “villa”
you ask? Everything seems to be a villa in Bali (google it), which is basically
a house, but, it’s a Bali house, which usually means luxuries like swimming
pools, gourmet kitchens, outdoor showers, and on-call drivers – which is what
this was. So, that’s the visual: family holiday in a luxury Bali villa complete
with cleaning staff and driver. Basically a 2-week, 24-7 pool party with
free-flow gin and tonics. Nice.
Amy and I flew in to meet the family and
spend some quality time, Amy more than me, because hey, someone has to work
around here! J (I flew in for an extended weekend; Amy stayed on for her March
break from teaching). Bali is pretty much a playground for adults. One of the
planned events for the Robillard round-up was a hike up Gunung Batur, Bali’s
other volcano (remember Gunung means “mountain/volcano” in Indonesian). The
loyal blog followers among you will know when I say “Bali’s other volcano”, the
other volcano is the infamous and quintessential Gunung Agung, which we climbed
last year (see previous posts), and which is in the final sputtering stages of
eruption and therefore closed for hiking at the moment (see previous “cycling
Bali” post).
Gunung Batur, despite being Agung’s smaller
cousin from an elevational standpoint (Batur summit = 1717 m, Agung = 3100 m),
is a fabulously impressive volcano. The most stunning element of Batur is the caldera
diameter of over 14 kms, making it one of the largest calderas on earth. For you
non-volcanologists like me, the caldera is the crater that is formed at the top
of a volcano after an eruption and collapse of the top of the volcano.
Basically it’s what’s left after a volcano blows its top. What’s way cool, is
that Batur is a double caldera, meaning a caldera inside a caldera formed by a
new cone forming in the middle of this gigantic crater. So what you climb, is
actually the new peak that is forming in the middle of the original volcano.
How’s that for a mind bender!
So, to review, what we have here is a
gigantic 14-km wide caldera formed by a cataclysmic explosion a bizzillion
years ago, with a new 700-m peak (and growing) inside. The estimated height of
the original volcano, before the eruption, is 3800 m. The caldera rim now sits
at about 1200 – 1500 m, meaning about 2000+ m of solid-rock mountain just
simply blew itself apart and vapourized. You do not want to be in the same
hemisphere when that happens. So ya, what we humans scramble up in this era, is
the “little” 700-m cone now forming in the middle of all of this. Cool.
Like most volcanos in Indonesia, Batur is
active, and has erupted many times in the past 100 hundred or so years killing
hundreds of people. The blackened scars of recent lava events are front and
centre. Despite that, the caldera is populated by a dozen or so villages and scads
of people farming the rich volcanic soils inside the caldera. It’s that big.
There are roads crisscrossing it and around the top of the crater rim. And then
of course there’s Lake Batur, the lake inside the caldera, which is, of course,
Bali’s largest lake.
 |
| Gunung Batur from space |
So the mission: a relatively
straightforward hike of about 10 kms from the car, up to the rim (i.e., the new
cone), around the rim, and back down to the car. Total elevation gain about 700m.
We left Sanur at about 4 am with our driver (remember, on-demand driver!), and
were hiking by 6 am, just in time for sunrise and birds. Beautiful day, blue
sky, crisp mountain air. Nice! The crew was all Robillards + spouses over the
age of 1, and under 60 (so therefore, me, Amy, Amy’s sister Crystal, and
husband David).
It’s a rather pleasant hike, made even more
pleasant because we were bucking the trend of hiking during the night to be at
the top for sunrise – an Indo tradition that we vehemently oppose (see previous
posts). So hey, because everyone was at the top at 6 am, we had the trail to
ourselves! Really nice hike, great loop around the crater rim, with great
views, and a beautiful bluebird day. And, our obligatory teenage guide didn’t
even annoy us that much! (another Indo tradition we vehemently oppose).
Well OK then, another successful Bali
mission. Fun was had by all. And now, Crystal and David can go back to St.
John’s, Newfoundland where they live, and comfortably tick off the “climb to the
top of an active volcano in Indonesia” from their bucket list J
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