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It is definitely time to update you on my travel adventures again. I see that I last wrote to you in January, so that are 4 full months to catch up with!
I am still working at
Re:formation Pilate Studio and it is going great. I have to keep practicing hard to be able to keep up with the level of some of my clients!
Of course I have been running around Jakarta and surrounding areas, both with
Jakarta Free Spirit Running club as well as with the crazy people from
Hash House Harriers.
Jakarta Free Spirit regularly organises some local races (March ’10) and I managed to squeeze myself into the number one position during a
21.1km race and won 1 million rupiah worth of Puma gear! (if you convert it to ZAR is doesn’t sound as impressive anymore… hahaha). But I still really enjoyed spending it!
The Hash House Harriers also have a great bi-annually event in Malaysia, called the
Hash Challenge. A 40+km run through the jungle. A team from the TGIS Hash (Thank God It’s Saturday) needed a last minute 4th member to go run this event on the 1st of May, so
I got roped in for that. And what an experience! We ran a total of 47km through the Malaysian jungle! Well, crawling up or down hills most of the time, swinging from trees trying to stay on your feet and crossing too many rivers with hungry leeches.. But when you see that finish line 11 hours later it is so worth it and very satisfying! And surprisingly enough we came in 2nd team overall, but as we lost 2 team members along the line we weren’t ‘official’ anymore.. (One due to a cut that required stitches and one due to severe cramps from the impossible heat & humidity)
As most of you might have noticed, I visited my home base in
Cape Town for 1 week, during the month of February ‘10. I enjoyed the dry heat and relative cool temperatures while stocking up on my lack of meat intake with more than one braai. I went around False Bay on a motorbike and climbed Lion’s head and came out amazed yet again with the beauty of the Western Cape! I will have no problem returning back home when my time in South East Asia comes to an end
Jakarta Free Spirit
Crossing the finish line! (whenever that might be……).
Occasionally I do try to explore some of Jakarta’s historical sights. I joined the International
Couchsurfing event at the end of March ’10, which included a guided bicycle tour through
‘Kota’ (Jakarta’s old Dutch quarter). It’s a rather rundown area and lots of the beautiful colonial houses are in a poor state due to all the pollution but it has preserved its charm. We cycled to the harbour, visited the Maritime museum (the building was more interesting than its content.. ) and we had loads of photo shoots in front of buildings and bridges..
Not long after that I went on a short trip to
Bandung. Unfortunately Bandung is pretty much shopping and eating, and outdoor events require a considerable time in traffic trying to make your way out of the city. So most of our precious time was spent moving from one Angkot to another (local public mini-van) trying to get to our strawberry picking destination and back..
I also remembered an ancient Dutch Bakery on Jl. Braga (another old Dutch remnant) from my previous stay in Bandung, and if any of you have ever heard of “bokke-pootjes”, well, they manage to make
a pretty good version of this in their historical kitchen! I bought a whole lot to take back to Jakarta, but unfortunately only about 5 remained by the time we made it back home….Oeps!
Now that the rainy season has finally come to an end, it is an absolute pleasure to spend time on
Idguides’ campsite outside Sentul ( a quiet and green area about 50km outside Jakarta). This hiking company organises anything from short half-day hiking trips in Sentul, to challenging treks all over Indonesia. They have a local campsite atop of a small hill with 360 views, the prefect way to spend your weekend away from the big city!
And last but not least, I just returned from a
5-day trip to Northern Sulawesi (Manado and surrounding areas). This trip was organised by
Java Lava, the same company I climbed Gn Agung with in Bali during October ‘09. On day 1 we climbed
Gn Lokon (1500m). This volcano has an active bubbling crater, releasing all kinds of rather unpleasant gasses but really spectacular to observe! The way down this volcano was something different, as our guide lost his way in the 2m high Elephant grass and
The Hash Challenge
Emerging from the forest, on my way to the water stop got us bush-whacking through razor sharp grass for almost 2 hours before we found the river bed which would lead us back down…
With the first set of clothes now thoroughly soaked, both from rain and sweat, and not drying at all due to the super high humidity, we made our way to Airmadidi where we would start our climb up
Gn Klabat (2000m). We started our trek at 300m and climbed our way to 1600m that day to put up camp. The plan was to get up early to climb to the summit and watch the sunrise before descending. As you can hear, this didn’t turn out quite as expected as the mountain was covered in clouds which made our summit slightly less spectacular than described.. With the second set of clothes now also drenched we pretty much ran our way back down to the village in about 2 hours..
Our final stop was
Tankoko National Park. This 8800 hectare park houses tiny creatures called ‘Tarsiers’. They are miniature monkeys with huge eyes (as they are nocturnal animals) and they are just too cute. We also spotted a ‘cuscus’ with a baby in its pouch, and a
group of Macaques playing around the forest while finding their breakfast. We spotted all this before breakfast so after a 4h walk we were happy to get back home, with the 3rd set of wet clothes, to get a well deserved breakfast.
During this breakfast I was surprised by my first experience of an earthquake. There was a
6.0 quake about 100km from Tangkoko National Park, which made our breakfast table and roof shake for a couple of seconds..
But overall, life is still good in Indonesia and I can’t wait to explore this country more!
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mamske
non-member comment
phff
Morning sweetie. Heeeeel leuke blog. Goed geschreven, goede vertelstijl en heel vlot te lezen!Er zullen er weer veel jaloers zijn. Hopelijk kunnen wij er ook binnen 2 maanden iets van meegenieten! Ook het zinnetje ivm Cape Town hebben we met veel interesse gelezen...?? Love You!