Gecko, Gecko--Bali

Gecko, Gecko--Bali, January 6, 2007

Arieh here. I tried to get Eitan or Avidan to write this entry but no luck. We have just spent two glorious weeks with our two wonderful boys--all of you know that I am objective on that point. Other than eating, shopping and watching dance performances almost every night, Bali is pretty boring. Actually, I am kidding a lot on that. Bali is very exciting. At night one learns why a Gecko is called a Gecko. It makes the sound of it's name and always twice in a row--Gecko, Gecko.

I am not going to write about everything we did in this entry. In addition to climbing up to a very nice waterfall (which seemed a dubious enterprise at first) I am also going to tell you about climbing up Mt. Batur, one of their holy mountains that is also a relatively active volcanoe (last minor eruption only 4 years ago--just some volcanic rock and fireballs, no lava flows). Of course there are lots of organized tours to take you there and back to wherever you are staying. We, on the other hand, were travelling with two of Eitan's impoverished student friends and that meant we were not going to do a really organized trip. That's not to say I would have done anything differently than we did. It just meant that I let the students do the negotiating and that worked out better for all of us. In short, we stayed at a hotel near the mountain and were woken up at 3:30AM for the morning ascent. There were 5 of us--me, Eitan, Avidan, Gregg and Danuta (Eitan's two friends). Val stayed back to guard the bed. The one-way trip is only about 1.5 hours, somewhat steep near the end and one then is treated to a view of the sunrise and Lombok island to the East. Mt. Batur is not the tallest mountain, it is just not too difficult or long to climb. We were treated to breakfast at the top in the midst of the morning cloud--the view was not that great. We then continued on for another 3.5 hours during daylight and cleard skies. This was the real exciting part--able to see the inside of the crater(S) and walk along the ridge.

The craters are not boiling lava as one might see on TV. No, these are pretty dry and covered in vegetation. There are some steam vents in evidence and some burned areas on different parts of the mountain, but no molten lava. However, walking along the ridge was a big treat (or threat if one is weak of heart). Parts of the top of the crater were no wider than two feet. And certainly not a nice paved walkway. There was also quite a strong wind up there and sometimes we were crouching low as we walked along. At times the path was slightly (60 cm) below the ridge and there was a "wall" to hold on to. Other times, the walkway was right at the top and nothing to hold on to. Falling or being blown off the trail may not have been fatal, but it would certainly have hurt. Both sides had quite steep dropoffs and I didn't see a lot of things to stop one's fall. Thankfully, no one fell and I can happily write about it.


Once off the ridge, we still had to descend to the base of the mountain and see other craters. That was about 2 more hours walking down the mountain through volcanic earth (very fertile), sparse vegetation and evidence of other steam vents. While we did not experience it (the sulphur levels were deemed too high), the guides sometimes are allowed to demonstrate the mountain by cooking an egg over one of these vents. We were also able to see the lava flows from the last major eruption in the 1960s (I think). Lots of black rock and easy to see from above where the lava stopped flowing. Quite impressive.

One final item. The day before we climbed the mountain Eitan's friends needed to buy a cell phone card. We were all there together and I was able to convince the store to give me one of their promotional t-shirts. I promised I would wear it and did so to the top of the mountain and then sent them a beautiful picture of us at the top advertising for them. Hope they are pleased. (picture).