2012 Indonesia and I: What I Did in Sukabumi

2012’s first long weekend, and I’m in Indonesia. As usual, I was looking forward to a weekend getaway, and fortunately, I got an invitation from a former officemate (and ex-housemate in Makati) to join their group for a weekend camping and trekking in Sukabumi. Perfect! :)

All the arrangements, from transpo to budget and itinerary were handled by them; I just had to prepare my things and be up early to meet them all at their apartment. :)

MEETING NEW FRIENDS

Yes, it was my first time to meet them (except Anne, the one who invited me). They’re also auditors but not from the same firm (as mine) in Jakarta. Epal mode activated! =p Actually, we came from the same firm in Manila hehehe but we didn’t have the chance to meet back then. :) This was the first (and the last) time that I went out with them for an out-of-town trip hahaha! (because I discovered that my EYmates are also gala in nature! ehehe!)

We were a bit late from the original plan; we left Jakarta at past 10am. Considering that it was a long weekend, everyone’s heading to their respective towns, so we were caught in traffic. It took us almost 6 hours traveling, that we reached the campsite at past 4 in the afternoon.

CAMPING AND FOOD-TRIPPING

Below are some pix of the campsite; our group occupied 2 tents—one for the girls and one for the boys (may ganun?! Hehe)

We didn’t have much to do, so we just took the time exploring the campsite and camwhoring at the same time. The campsite’s on a mountain that we felt like we were in Baguio; it must be due to the cold breeze that welcomed us. :)

We then prepped for dinner… Yes! Indonesian food was served; actually, for the entire duration of the trip, we were taking in Indo food! ehehe! Since it was just my 3rd week in Indonesia then, most of the food were unfamiliar to me.

After dinner, we played cards and pinoy henyo over some local beer (Bintang) and pisang bakar. Bintang (or Star in English), is a local beer, that tasted (almost) the same as the beer in the Ph hehe! That’s according to my taste buds! ehehe! While we were drinking and playing cards, we were served with this Pisang Bakar (grilled banana topped with cheese and chocolate), which somehow turned to be our pulutan! ;p Killer combo! ;p

We were shouting our lungs out and laughing out loud while we played pinoy henyo, that one camper reprimanded us shouting from afar (from his tent) “Can you please **cking shut up!” Boom! Nasira ang mood namin! Hehe! We had no other choice but to get inside a tent located far from the others, just to continue our fun game and pass the time away.

The Pinoy Henyo game ended with our team winning! hehe! And the prize was Magnum! ehehe! :D After playing, off we went to sleep in prep for the following day’s early hike.

HIKING, CHASING A WATERFALL AND OJEK-RIDING TO THE LAKE

We were up so early the following day, as we were scheduled for a hiking activity going to a waterfall. A briefing was given by a local, which I didn’t understand at all hehe! We were not the only group who went hiking; there were a number of campers who were also going to see the waterfall.

It was an easy hike; a few minutes, we were already seeing the waterfall. There were quite a number of people already at the waterfall when we arrived. We just waited for the right timing to do our camwhoring and stuff like that :p.

The waters come crashing down heavily; nobody’s swimming at the pool of it, probably because it was too deep. :D Some went dipping a few meters away from where the waterfall drops.

After doing our share of the photo ops, we then headed for an Ojek (habal-habal) ride to the lake. We were supposed to hike our way to the lake, but most of my companions didn’t want to hike anymore (hehe mga hindi sanay!), so haggled with some of the Ojek drivers to take us to the lake.

Buwis-buhay, yay! It’s not my first time to ride a motorcycle, but riding on it while we were passing on a narrow and unpaved cliff (malalim na bangin sa kabilang side) was a bit scary! All we could do was say our own prayers hahaha and trust the ojek drivers! :)

After a few minutes of bumpy-scary-ojek-ride, we reached the lake, which is near the campsite already.

The water’s not clean, I know; good thing it wasn’t smelly hehehe! But the mountains and the pines at the backdrop were a beauty! Made us feel so close to nature! :)

After some nice time at the lake, we headed back to the campsite, still with the Ojeks hehe! It was almost lunch time, but we still got another activity before taking our lunch break… The most awaited activity of all…

SURVIVING THE ROPES

Yep, I’m calling it surviving the ropes! hehehe! I actually forgot what the name of the activity was, but mostly, ropes were used during this buwis-buhay but fun-filled activity. Okay, I came first in line; yeah I let them bully me to volunteer first for the activity (because I just tagged along)! hehehe!

We were required to use our shoes for this activity. I was quite nervous seeing all those ropes tied to the barks of big trees, but I was pretty sure I didn’t have fear of heights; so that also made me volunteer to lead on the activity! hehe! So after putting on my helmet, gloves, and all those safety ropes/harness around my body, I’m ready for the first activity! :D

Tadah!

This was a little easy; I just had to be extra careful in stepping on the ropes. Look at that smile on my face! ehehe! :) The second dare was a bit difficult (or so I thought!).

This was the most difficult task, for me! I said I didn’t have fear of heights, but walking on this thin rope made my knees tremble when I was halfway through! hahaha! I was having a lot of ‘what if’s’ inside my head! I was having a difficulty in balancing hehehe! But I was glad I survived after a few minutes of struggling! :D

The third’s kinda easy too; balancing was not that difficult as I’ve got two ropes on the side to hold on to. Plus the wooden pieces that we were stepping into are a bit wider; we can step both of our feet side by side :). Seeing the guides at the end of each dare also helped in giving us confidence to reach the end of the rope hehe!

And the last part was:

They don’t call this zipline—they call it something else (flying…agh! Forgot the term! ehehe!) Yes, this is the last part of surviving the ropes! I’ve had several experiences on ziplines, but this one gave me the scare at first! Haha! Perhaps it’s because of how the ropes are attached to my body; ewan ko. I got a feeling that I might fall back! Haha! Kaya naman yung ichura ko sa pic, kung makakapit, wagas! :D

After surviving the ropes, we took our lunch and prepped to leave the campsite. At about past 2 in the afternoon, we were all set to go back to reality—to Jakarta. But before leaving, we still managed to take some jumpshots and posed also for a group pic with the tents as our background. :D