For the long weekend at the end of May we decided to head to central Java to climb Gunung Merbabu and to take in the sights of Solo. We flew into Semarang on Thursday night and took a taxi directly to the hill village of Kopeng, where we met our trip organiser Pak Totok. It was straight to bed as we arrived late and we were aiming for a 5 am start the next morning. We dragged ourselves out of bed at 4.30 am and forced some fried rice down our necks before setting off for the trailhead in an angkot with our two porters. By 5.45 we were already on the trail. After about 15 minutes the porters stopped for breakfast; we knew then it wouldn’t be a record breaking climb in terms of speed. Andy and I hiked on ahead and waited at several points for the porters to catch up, including a 1.5 hour break with a nap at lunchtime! We learned our lesson on Tambora – don’t get too far ahead of the porters, especially if it looks like rain, as they might decide to stop for the day without bringing your tent to where you are waiting! The forest was pretty along the way, not too dense and as we got higher it turned into grassland with sparse trees. We got some good views of Gunung Sumbing and Gunung Sindoro to the west.
After lunch we took some of the weight out of the porter packs to speed things up a bit, but the weather was already closing in – luckily we were only caught in the rain for about 10 minutes and then we got back out of the clouds the final push to the summit campsite. The camping area is actually on summit 4 (from a total of 7). Summits 4 through 7 are spaced along a ridge and all have great views; summit 7, at 3171m is the true summit. The weather brightened up and we got some great views over to Gunung Merapi smoking and looking mean to the south. After a dinner of noodles and bandrek (a hot drink made from ginger, pepper and palm sugar) it was an early night for us after our lack of sleep the night before.
We were woken up about 3.30 am by the arrival of a large group of Indonesian students who were hiking up to see the sunrise, and we got up about 5.30 and joined them for the sunrise. After breakfast (porridge and nescafe) we set off to conquer the true peak which took us about 30 minutes. After admiring the view we dropped off the other side of Merbabu and made our way back down to the village of Selo which lies between Merbabu and Merapi. Pak Totok was waiting for us in his trust angkot and we found a car in Selo to take us into Solo.
After arriving in Solo, it was first stop for a shower and then off for a cold beer and a very nice Italian meal at the cleverly name Oh Solo Mio restaurant. Solo is famous as a center for Javanese culture and arts and has thriving traditional dance, music and arts scene, including handmade batik fabrics with traditional patterns. The next day we took a look around the town which was smaller and nicer than we expected, with many old shophouses down small lanes in the old quarter. We visited the kraton and another palace, ate some very good street food (srabi, a pancake with rice pudding and banana on top, and tahu kupat, tofu served with rice cakes cooked in a banana leaf) and of course bought some batik. Then it was time to hit the road and fly back to Jakarta ready for work on Monday morning.
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