Blending With Nature: Gede Pangrango

PH | JANIS +

I've always wanted to hike a mountain although i'm more of an ocean person. However, since my family are Earth-water-air adventurers, I decided to join my auntie for my first hike to Mt. Gede Pangrango National Park with my brother, and my auntie's family.

Since I didn't know we were going hiking this holiday, I left my blending-with-nature-mountain-hike starter kit (sleeping bag, beanie, wool socks, trekking shoes, etc.) in Bali, thus I borrowed some apparels from my mum and my auntie. I also brought a fanny pack with my pocket camera, phones, snacks and wet tissues inside.

Our plan was that we start hiking at 9 am, so we'll reach Surya Kencana by 3 pm. However, we started hiking late, which was 1 pm and ended up camping one and a half hours below Surya Kencana instead. We cooked some dinner and went to bed at 8 pm.

At 3.30 am we woke up, had some breads to fuel up ourselves and went up to Surya Kencana by 5 am. We reached Surya Kencana at 7.30 am with its breathtaking view, cold air and (finally) plain lands. The plain was filled with beautiful Edelweiss! While my auntie & uncle made us tuna spaghetti, my cousins and I went walking towards the water spring.

We went down at 11 am, and reached the campsite by 1.30 pm. Packed our bags, had our lunches and went down. The trip downwards was more painful than our trip upwards. My knees and basically my whole legs went wobbly. I was really happy when we reached the first post by 5 pm.

The trip back to Jakarta was very long due to the traffic so we stopped by Sate Kambing for dinner, and arrived home by 12.30 am.