4am came and it was time to go. We brought cold weather clothes because I remember freezing on top of the volcano as the sun peaked last time. Our driver came by and scooped us up, and dropped us off at the base. We met our guide, was given bamboo hiking sticks, and began the climb. They offered us headlamps but we each had brought our own. We militantly hiked at first with little stops in hopes of beating others to the summit, but eventually the cardio and bodyweight squats got the best of us, and we started behaving like humans and took some breaks. We finally plopped down at the summit, caught our breath, and I set up a timelapse to record the sunrise. Unknown to me, you could clearly see two more volcanoes off in the distance and I had to reposition the camera to get a better view of them; they were obscured by clouds last time so I didn’t know what the ideal angle actually was! It also turns out if the weather is really clear you can see Mount Rinjani on Lombok, the next island over, but we didn’t see that this morning. As the sun crested over the clouds, we jumped on a digital meetup with our family and close loved ones. We talked and thought it was pretty funny when one of our cousin’s daughters wanted to see the bubbling lava of the volcano, but unfortunately they don’t let casual plebs hike up the active volcanoes. We found a good spot with a canang sari, a small bamboo offering filled with flowers and incense, and thought it might be a good place to spread Jim’s ashes. I queued up Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd and as the song concluded, Mark dispersed some ashes into the crater during the video conference. Emotions rang strong, and even the tourguide started to choke up a little bit. Mark and I took some uncomfortable “I’m totally not crying” photos at the top, and I wrote Jim’s initials, JJS, in the dirt at the location of where the little ceremony happened. We went around the rim of the crater a bit more until the clouds took over, and we decided to head back down.
We tumbled back down the volcano and chatted with our guide about life, feeling an extra connection after the ceremony at the top. We tipped him double what we had planned before we made it back to the base, to assure he would be able to keep it all himself. We went to go view an underappreciated local temple that had 7 meru towers, with stacks of odd numbers from 1 all the way up to 11. People looked at us confused for stopping and eating, and we headed off.
With no actual destination in mind, we went around the outside of Lake Batur, and ended up in a very lowly trafficked area, where describing the road as a “dirt road” would have been too generous. At one point we went around a turn that was entirely filled with water, and I took it wide on the left side, as you drive on the left there. We kept going and realized we were headed nowhere fast, and turned around. Upon approaching the same puddle, I broke a cardinal rule of cycling where you do not go through puddles because you never know how deep they are, and while taking it again on the left, in case someone was coming around the blind corner on the other side, and sank in up to my ankle in a thick black mud. I revved the motor to try and get out and nothing happened, so I gave it a little more gas and all 150ccs spooted out of the hole and I drifted into that wall that made the turn so difficult, jamming the handlebar into my ribs, ouch. I angrily headed off and we went to a store where Mark did his medical thing and checked me, cleaned my scraped toe, and made sure I was alright. We headed more north and got dumped on by some freezing rains, and I was fairly miserable for a good chunk of time. We made it out of the mountains and tried to enjoy the northern coast, only to be bombarded with fierce rains. In pain, and cold, and utterly cranky, I pressed on until I found an awning that I could pull over and dry my hands off enough to use a phone to find a place for us to sleep. We wanted to head over towards Amlapura, but we found a cool little spot in Ababi. My ribs hurt and my fingers were pruney and I flopped down the second we arrived.
Continue to the next page for additional photos from the day