Hiking to the volcanic lakes in the morning

We get up really early – it is around four in the morning and we go out to our car and driver to head up the nearby Kelimutu Volcano. The car can’t go all the way to the top so we have to hike for an about 20 minutes in the dark. We do have a couple of torches so we can see the trail which isn’t too difficult so it is a pretty easy walk even in the dark. And we are not alone on the trail we can see a lot of other people with their torches on the way up the hill.

We make it to the top where we want to see the sunrise. Well we make it long before sunrise so we have to wait for quite a while before the sun comes up. And at this hour of the day it isn’t all that warm up on the top of a volcano – fortunately we didn’t consider this before we headed up so we put on the warmest cloth we had for the trip – which wasn’t that warm considering we expected a trip to the tropics.

While we wait for the sunrise more and more people make it to the top of the volcano so it isn’t going to be a private viewing of the sunrise this morning. The sun comes up over the mountain and we are supposed to be able to see some lakes below – but there is a lot of mist on the mountain covering the lakes at sunrise. We wait for a bit and the mist starts to clear so we can see the lakes. After a bit we finally get a view of the different lakes which has different colours. It is pretty up here and we enjoy the views for a while.

Then we decide to head back down from the top. Just as we start making our way down there is a lot of monkeys coming up to the top of the volcano. We have a look at the monkeys waking up in the morning before we head back down.

• 

• 

• 

Walking down in the light we can see more than on the way up so we enjoy the views from the trail this time around. We drive back to the hotel and have our breakfast.

After breakfast we walk down to the market place where a big market attracts a lot of people from the nearby villages. There is a lot of activity at the market and many small local buses bringing people to the market and back with their groceries.