Sunrise Trek on an Active Volcano, Kintamani, Bali, Indonesia

August 29, 2014

Mount Batur, Kitanmani, Indonesia

We met our driver, Kadek,with pillows in hand, at 1:00am to drive to Kitanmani.  At 3:00 am I joined the group from baliecocycling at the Lakeview restaurant for a 30 minute drive to the base of the volcanoe.

Hubby's knees were not up for the adventure so Russ's Flamingo joined me.  It took 2 hours in the dark, of serpentine hiking and climbing to reach the top.  I was drenched with sweat, but thrilled to reach our goal and turn off my flashlight!

After a half hour wait in the dark, the sun peeked out for a few glorious minutes.  We all grabbed our cameras and just as quickly the clouds came in.

Luckily the clouds moved on after 15 minutes.  It was beautiful, even though we never actually had a truly clear view.

After breakfast, we walked around the steaming crater and put our hands in warm fissures (vents of lovely, warm volcanoe steam).

At the top!

The volcanoe monkeys were much nicer than the Ubud monkeys.  People (not me) fed them right out of their hands.

I wasn't able to capture the depth of the crater in a photo.  It was monstrously huge!

Lake Batur in the distance

On the left you can see where Lake Batur almost meets the 1963 lava flow field on the right.

The is really amazing to see in person.

Coming down was quicker, but much harder on the knees.  From bottom left to right:  Henry our guide, Sneha and Rohit, two newlywed dentists from India and more hikers.

We're done!!!