From last Wed to Saturday, the entire Bronze and Silver made a combine Adventurous Journey to Taman National Ujung Kulon. Which is at the most south west corner of Java, where the last 55 of the Java Rhinos live. The first day was spent mostly in the car ride, we rode for about 8 hours in the car, only a couple of stop along the way for lunch and toilet. The high light of the road trip was probably when we climbed a 16 story light tower as an exercise for the hike. The view up there was amazing. Some of us stood on the balcony and enjoyed the sea breeze. We could see for miles around us. When we got to our base camp, the rain was pouring. Getting out of the bus and scrambling for rain gear in mud is not fun, trust me!!! Not only did you have to put on your own poncho, but also your bags poncho, since the goodies inside are suppose of keep you alive for the next few days. Getting into the tent in the rain was a struggle as well. Dinner wasn't bad, but we experience the power of insects. Our four man tent composed of Steven, Ho Jun and Dhana and me. And it leaked. EVERYWHERE. We were lucky we didn't sink into the ground. And it was hot, very hot even with the rain.
2nd Day Next day Silver, which was us, divided into two teams. Ours was called Celebrity, because a lot of us worked out at Celebrity Fitness. The other group, was called Explorers. We distributed the weight of the cooking equipment, sleeping bags, tents etc. Our method of packing was to give all the stuff to Steven, while the rest of us took Steven's personal equipment. The first part of the trek was about 2 km. Even thought the Explorers went first, we Celebrities caught up with them pretty quickly and began to over take them. Ms. Elizabeth told us to stop and regroup. We did about 12 km that day, it was the hardest I've ever done. There was a lot of mud due to the rain the previous night. The path was slipper and it was really hot in the forest, even though we were under the shade, there was no breeze to be felt. We were crammed in a tight space. We crossed 8 bridges that day, all of the rudimentary, only a log across and a supporting structure. During the last part of the trek, we could hear the sea waves. Our camp on the second day was along the beach. It was nice. We picked a great place to pitch our tent, it was on a platform. We even finished building the latrines for the entire trek group.
We cooked rice for dinner, which was great. We soaked the rice for about 40 mins. We whiled away the time by taking a shower. By the time the rice was cooked, a thunderstorm had started. We took our rice inside and enjoyed it with spicy tuna, peanuts, ambon, beans. It was great. It was hot at night, and we didn't sleep until 10.
3rd Day
Today we trekked along the beach, the landscape was beautiful. We trekked across all sorts of seaside landscape. Everything from pure white sandy ones to harsh stone and coral ones. The waves were very beautiful. Endless streams of white horses gallop on to the shore, but only to leap up higher than the rocks.
It was very hot though, we walked under the baking sun for the entire day.
Lunch was under the shade of two trees, we cooked Indomie. It was nice.
The pace of the celebrity was still very fast, we were the first today to arrive at camp, having dashed the last leg. We waited for about 20 mins before the rest of the groups showed up. We set up the tents and arrange the shower times and latrines. The guide gave us a briefing on the Indonesian Viper, and what to do when we see it.
We picked a very nice spot along the coast where we can receive the sea breeze to set up tent. We only had to worry about coconuts dropping on top of us.
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We had spaghetti for dinner, Ho Jun was good cook. We chilled out at the beach for the remainder of the evening until it rained. Leo had fun taking pictures of stars.
4th (last) Day.
Today we had to get up way early and pack up. We gave the camping equipment and cooking equipment back to ID guides. We are doing 14 km along the coast today, then a boat ride, then finally a bus to Jakarta.
We crossed a bridge along the coast, where the river was flowing into the sea or was it the other way around? We saw Jelly fish coming in with the tide.
The Celebs got lost on the last leg and we had to back track and move at military pace to catch up with the rest.
The boat ride was fun. The breeze was blowing and it wasn't too hot. Euen Seok and I slept very peacefully in the front of the boat in the shade. :)