Sempol adventures

Every once in a while in life, you have those lucky moments filled with happiness, wonder, and appreciation, and you know it's going to stay with you forever. Today this this happened as I was riding on the back of Jason's scooter from a viewpoint cafe back to the village, and we managed to go the ENTIRE way without turning on the engine - I want to say it was at least 5km! Boss. There were some moments when I was afraid we weren't going to make it, but a little leaning forward did the trick!

Today was another great day :)

I walked to the station this morning alongside uniformed children walking to school. Except my bag was 10 times bigger. As you grow up, your bag gets bigger too, I guess ;p.

I got on the Sempol bemo right away, along with two Danish girls also going to Mt.Ijen, and left with a relatively empty bus. It didn't stay that way though. The vanbus stopped every 5 minutes or so to pick up shipments for the village we're driving to, and pretty soon I was walled in by buckets of tofu, jugs of water, boxes of eggs, you name it. All-purpose bemo!

Cool experience,  although because of this, the trip took 2 hours longer than it should have. When we finally got to one of the two hotels in the village, we found it to be fully booked :( But we managed to scrape ourselves a dingy little dorm room with 6 beds for 300,000. Extremely steep price for Indonesia, but the 3 of us decided that we would do a lot for a hot water shower right now (which the room actually had!) so we took it.

Later on at night I actually found 2 Belgian guys looking for some beds, so we took them in and knocked our individual prices down! I was so glad when one guy said it was "symbiosis", because I was totally thinking it in my head but didn't want to say it.

Anyway, the 2 Danish girls and I went on a little walking adventure. The main road through the village is beautiful! Theres Mt.Ijen at the end of the road (can't believe I'm climbing that at 1am), and it's lined with charming houses and their vegetable garden front yards.

 Also we had some followers...

The girls wanted to hike Ijen by day, and I wanted to go to see a coffee plantation, and of course there was no shortage of locals trying to offer rides. We chose this ride.

Then a guy came and said he wanted a picture, with my phone. I thought he wanted a picture with all of us, but he actually wanted this (and didn't actually want the picture because, you know, it's on my phone).

Anyway, imagine being on a roller coaster ride, but without a seat belt.... you got yourself a ride on the back of a truck in the mountains of Indonesia.

I hopped off the truck along the way, and walked in the direction of the coffee plantations. Pretty soon I ran into workers on the side of the street, sorting coffee beans! I excitedly asked to take pictures and talked to the locals. Then, out from the coffee bushes emerged - Jason, the guy who gave me a lift to Bromo!!! Holy coincidence! :) I was very excited to see him.

Turns out that again, we had the same plan - walk through some coffee plantation and do some exploring. So I hopped on the back of his motorbike, and off we went.

The ride was such a thrill! The mountain, while covered with tall trees, had coffee plants EVERYWHERE under the canopy, and the windy road cuts right through it.

We stopped along the road, and cut into the coffee forest to go exploring. It was a pretty amazing time, some highlights:

1) the coffee fruit juice actually tastes deliciously sweet! Apparently the skin contains more caffeine than the beans!

2) when we were deep in the forest, we heard from villages far away the start of Muslim prayers on loud speakers. Except two separate villages were doing it at the same time. The curiously calming chants reached us simultaneously, clashing and harmonizing in colorful ways. Along with the bird songs, cricket calls, and monkey cries, it suddenly felt so...peacefully haunting. Then a third village joined in to make a trio!

3) On our trek back, Jason noticed a wild banana tree, with two very ripe looking bananas hanging from the top. So with some team work - I bent the trunk while he jumped to wack it with a stick, we got to taste the smallest, most delicious bananas ever :p.

4) When I'm with Jason, the men were so respectful, and appropriately friendly. That is all.

It was such a wonderful day.

Also just some great hostel pillow talk with one of the Belgian guys who's training to be an anesthesiologist (the one who said "symbiosis", of course). It's one of the greatest things I love about backpacking - I get to meet so many wonderful people from all around the world. Although we're all of different nationalities, I feel that a lot of us share the same sprit and connect instantly - we all have got to be the same kind of crazy to be doing this kind of thing together. It's truly amazing how much we can get to know each other, enjoy time together, and learn from one another in such a short time before going separate ways.

One of my hopes is to run into one of these people I've met on my travels in the future. It'll be a great moment :)

Now time to get a nap in before going to hike up Ijen in the dead of night to see some blue flames! Ciao!