Volcano number two. Gunung Inerie. Check. Poignantly lumbering on the south of Bajawa in solitude. Without natural companionship. A magnificent cone. Menacing, yet perversely enticing.
Friday night I found myself thinking, “What would Jen do? What would she take?”. Always prepared for the unexpected. Always pointing out my ignorance of the outdoors. I didn’t want to disappoint. I aspire to be a wilderness girl… an eager pupil, nevertheless not quite yet equipped with sufficient familiarity of natural world. Thus, trying to crawl into the mind of someone I admire, someone more knowledgeable than I.
The feeling of accomplishment is sweet but always sweeter when shared. Geoff, also a VSO volunteer on Flores, made the mere 10 hour trip inland to mount the living, beating beast. Setting out with the stars still hanging in the night sky at 4 am, our local guide (notably comical, he wore a ski mask and carried a machete) led the two aspiring adventurers… up. Up for hours. The stars seemed to be spin through the sky. Trippy. Seriously trippy. Just as pink and orange begun to streak the sky, we were engulfed by the white wetness of cloud cover. Hair and skin dripping with the surprisingly abundant condensation. Proving to be more than a steady incline, this was a true climb to the summit. More arduous than either Geoff or I anticipated… not that we thought it would be a walk in the park. Every foot placement required consideration. The ground was pebbly and loose. It was a gritty. It was riveted with veins of ire.
The clouds remained wrapped around Inerie, perhaps for the better, canceling the outward view of what could be either splendor or horror. The final leg to the top was a sheer rock face. Hugging the solid earth as wind whipped ruthlessly about. Admittedly, we’ve all had moments of exaggeration, thinking that the wind would blow us away. But on this morning, I was seriously filled with the fear of being propelled from the mountain by a gust of wind. Never have I experienced anything like it. Death by being blown off a volcano didn’t seem so unrealistic. An invisible strength unleashed from the mouth, the crater of the volcano. As if it was blowing out with all of the force Mother Nature could muster. We laughed at the reality of it all as our passionfruit rinds were caught by the gust and whisked far into the white abyss when ordinarily they would merely fall at our feet.
Triumph.
The wind enlivened three crosses made of hallow pipe at the apex of the journey. A musical climax, the soundtrack of our conquest. As if to say well done, the clouds parted briefly, reveling a spectacular blue sky with a string of clouds off into the horizon. Fluffy tops with heavy flat bottoms. We sat in awe gazing down at the clouds. Entranced by the ceaseless blue above. Truly atop of the world.
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