June 7th, 2016

Day 68: Kelimutu

Our alarm woke us up at 3:30AM, and for once we were not at all tired for a sunrise trek! Cristo and a fellow ojek driver arrived outside our lodge at 4AM, and Igor and Lindsay each climbed on an ojek for the very first time. While there were a few ominous clouds the night before, we could see a clear, star-filled sky during our hour-long drive up the mountain. The ojek ride was awesome – an essential part of the experience of Kelimutu – we are so glad we didn’t walk up or get a car. The feeling of being on the back of a motorcycle, with the cold morning air whipping across your face as you take the mountain corners in the pre-dawn darkness – THAT’S what adventure feels like!

Quick stop at the Kelimutu National Park HQ to pay the entrance fee, while Cristo yawns on his ojek

When we reached the top, Cristo and his friend bade us farewell, as we planned to walk ourselves back down the mountain after sunrise. We had about a 20min hike to the viewing platform on the mountain peak, when Igor noticed a bit of light on the horizon. Terrified of missing the Big Moment, he took off at a run to the top, while Lindsay calmly followed behind. (She didn’t miss the sunrise, and didn’t arrive out of breath either.)

OMG – QUICK, I DON’T WANT TO MISS THE SUNRISE

While we were not alone at the top of the mountain, Kelimutu has been by far and away the least crowded mountain sunrise we have visited in Indonesia (trust me – there are A LOT of them) – there were around 50 tourists, max, at the moment of sunrise, over half of which dispersed within 15min.

Waiting for the sunrise with a small group of tourists

 

Sunrise view from Mt. Kelimutu

What makes Kelimutu unique of the many volcanos in Indonesia, is the tri-colored crater lakes at the top of the mountain. The lakes are constantly changing colors due to chemical reactions from volcanic activity, so our photos may look completely different from photos taken a few years from now. Local legend says that when someone dies, their spirits come to one of these three lakes to pass on into the afterlife: the Good Lake, the Lake of Younger People, and the Evil Lake. (The Lake of Young People seems to be for those who weren’t *that* good in their lifetime, but weren’t really evil either – I guess the local people cut youngers some slack. At least, that’s how a local girl selling tea at the top explained it to us.)

 

The tri-colored lakes of Kelimutu: Atabupu / Lake of Old People (dark blue), Nuwamuri Ko’o Fai / Lake of Younger People (turquoise) and Atapolo / Evil Lake (olive green)

 

Reading up on the lakes

 

Speaking of youngsters – a group of local boys at the top of Kelimutu kept asking each of the Western women to pose for a photo holding a sign that either said, “I love you, so-and-so” or some mystery message in Bahasa Indonesian. They eventually got Lindsay to pose for a photo – hopefully it doesn’t say, “Death to America” on it. As they were all giggling and only asked women to hold the signs, we think it was probably something naughty, but harmless.

Even though sunrise was over by 6:30AM, Lindsay wanted to wait until 10AM so we could see all three lakes in the full sunshine (to better appreciate their stunning colors!), so we decided to kill some time by trying to climb down to the edge of the turquoise lake. There’s no trail, and the mountain is extremely steep. Lindsay soon gave up, and even Igor had to call it quits before reaching the bottom. Don’t’ try it – there are signs telling you to stay on the trail for a reason!

 

Futile attempt to reach the turquoise lake – perhaps our spirits will go there someday…

 

You get a better view of the lake from the top anyways – Nuwamuri Ko’o Fai in the sunlight

 

Checking out the color difference between the Young People Lake & Evil Lake

When we got back to the parking lot, we headed toward the visitor’s center to ask for directions for the way down – there is supposed to be a “traditional village” as well as some waterfalls and hot springs on the way, and we wanted to make sure we were going in the right direction. Unfortunately, the visitor’s center was closed – so we took a picture of the map posted nearby, hoping that would guide us down.

 

Heading down the mountain with our “map”

So, the walk down the mountain is only supposed to take 2 hours. It took us 6 HOURS to get down since we couldn’t find the turn off for the Pemo Village, and we kept backtracking up the mountain trying to find the trail (which, somehow, always seemed to lead us to their stupid Arboretum). When we finally did get on the right path toward the village, it kept forking with no signs saying which way was which – we finally just used the GPS in Igor’s cell phone to get us back to the main road.

 

Sign for Perekonde – which is on the map – showing we went too far. So we backtracked and ended up in a very overgrown arboretum

 

We kept following the paved path within the arboretum, hoping it would lead out into the village. Nope! Straight up, and back to the Kelimutu parking lot

 

Probably the right path to Pemo Village, as we found a marker on the road when we gave up and turned back. Note – this turn off for Pemo Village is NOT on the official tourism map

 

Wandering through cloudy farmland on the face of Kelimutu

About halfway down the mountain, we stupidly decided to try and take another short-cut. According to the map, there is a turn off that takes you directly to the Murondao Waterfall, which is right across the street from the Rainbow Café where we had agreed to meet up with Cristo to return his sneakers. Whatever road we took was not the correct road – after walking through remote farms & little villages, we finally ended up past our hotel, on the other side of Moni.

 

Lots of goats on the road

 

Lost again. Passing by lots of little farms

 

It was a LONG detour, but it was still a beautiful walk

We stopped back at our hotel for a quick shower before meeting up with Cristo, who then invited us to his brother’s post-wedding party later that night (customary “gift” is 100K rupiah / USD$10 pp – fair enough cover for a house party). About half the town showed up (as well as a handful other Western tourists) for a home-cooked rice & chicken dinner, live music (performed by Cristo’s brother-in-law), and arak (we passed on the booze, since everyone had to share the same shot glass). I’ll admit, Lindsay was a bit of a deer in headlights during the evening, but Igor was totally at ease: chillin’ to the local tunes, and chatting for an hour about fundraising options for the litter problem in Moni.

 

Igor breaking bread with the locals, and tapping his feet to the Indonesian-Rastafarian tunes

 

The party was raging late into the night – we could hear it from our hotel room. Glad we didn’t have to be up before dawn this time!