On the 3rd of July 2015 which was the day before the hike, me and my friends did a supply shopping to Pasar Baru Bobou. It ain’t like any other traditional market in Jakarta. I mean just see how different it is. We bought some rice, bananas, vegetables, eggs, an alive chicken, and others.

The traditional market situation

One of the merchant who sell tofu

An alive chicken

A bee on a cup of corn

Flores bananas

Packs of shrimp paste (it’s so good)

Dried noodles

Bunch of chayotes on the table

To get some rest before the hike, we stayed at our tour guide’s house named Yohanes. It is located in Langa Village, Bajawa. He mentioned that there are 16 small villages and 64 clans inside Langa.

His family greeted us warmly, especially the girls (it’s only me and my friend Nadya) cause they let us sleep in one of the rooms he had while the boys slept inside the living room (on the floor).

It goes to cooking now, we gotta cook for ourselves this time. I cut some vegetables and fry some eggs. Cooking was a lot of fun with friends! That time, the cooking utensils we used were still traditional. Coals for making the fire, stones for withstanding the pan, and the kitchen was still soil-floored. I remembered the smell of the smoke from the roasted chicken. It made my eye tender and itchy. After dinner, we immediately slept for about 3 hours before the hike.

I woke up at 12 am, the struggle was real. I bought some supplies like biscuits, water, a headlamp, and of course my camera. I put on my hiking shoes and my headlamp. The (crazy) hike had just started.

On the first phase of the hike, we walk through forests where we passed a lot of trees. That was until the second phase of the hike, we finally reached a point where there was no vertical vegetation anymore. We were in an open space now. The hiking field significantly got harder and harder. We had to climb up the 45 degree mountain without any safety rope or that sort of thing. I know, that was totally insane.

The steepness of Mt. Inerie

Unfortunately, the recent weather was dry that most of the plants can easily be pulled off. The third phase was the scariest part, plants were rare that we had to hold (for me though) and pull each other’s hand. In the middle of the hike, I tried to pull up my body by holding on a branch. Complete fail. The branch was pulled off and I was dragged on to the gravel rocks.

I thought I was gonna die there.

The first phase of the hike

The second phase of the hike

When it’s rest time, take photo!

Since then, I asked my friends which were boys to help me go up. At 6.30 we finally reached the second highest point of Mt. Inerie. The view was super! Look at this pictures.

View from the second highest point of Mt. Inerie

Me and my friends held on the Indonesian flag and a KOPAL flag. Happy faces!

We spent about half an hour up there, cherishing every moment of our life and we also had our breakfast in the most extravagant view. Every food seemed tasty back then.

Our guide said that it was time to hike down. It took 5 hours for us to reach our starting point, longer than hiking uphill. I can’t even tell how high I hiked that morning. From the two dimensional trees until we were on the same level of the trees. On the way down, we found various type of trees such as eucalyptus and an endemic species of bamboo. Its diameter varies around 8-10 cm wide. How huge?

The view when hiking down the mountain

That not-so-long hike was exhausting but it was an amazing experience to have in live. I learned that friendship is something I have to value and be grateful of. Then, we went back to our tour guide’s house. We ate our last meal in that village ’cause we had to continue our journey to Mataloko.