Early Morning and Hot Springs in Berastagi

Home Cooked Delights

We finished our day with a home cooked meal arranged by the guides. We were with a German couple and the food was traditional and delicious, shockingly again meat free. The house was really busy also having homestays. The German couple were nice at the start of a 6 week Sumatra tour, they had just completed a 5 day jungle hike.

Volcano and Hot Springs

The next morning was a 4.15am start as we hiked up Sibayak Volcano for the sunrise. This is still classed as active but not the volcano with the exclusion zone. Sibayak last erupted 400 years ago although there are still several places where hot steam is spurting out of the ground. The journey there included some of the bumpiest roads of the last 10 months they even used a different van rather than wrecking the normal one.

The walk up, in the dark was tough especially for 3 of us still suffering with aches from the jungle hike! From what we could tell by torchlight we walked up switch back bumpy roads, through a forest and up rocky paths. The views from the top were amazing although clouds did prevent a full view of the sunrise. We could also look down at the crater where people had written their names by moving rocks around. Coming back down was fun on our legs with some massive steps and also getting a view of the precarious route we'd taken up earlier. On the way down we saw and chatted to the couple from the meal as well as Smiley from Smiley's homestay from the night before. The German couple who had impressed us with their 5 day rain forest hike, let themselves down today by getting motorbike rides up to much nearer the top than our bus could.

After the hike we spent an hour at some hot springs, these were chosen by the guides. A great place with around 10 different pools so although busy each pool was quite quiet. We were the only non-local people about and meant we were asked for photographs with the families which was really nice. Everyone was super friendly, the most extreme was a lady who came up, handed her baby to James and then stood back and took some photos!

Coffee, No Thanks

Later we visited a coffee farm, this is one where the owner is doing everything in an ethical way, with a very natural and organic growing process to working with local orphanages to get the children involved with the farm. It was interesting and a great setting with the volcano behind us, it didn't tempt me into trying coffee, although the others did buy some to bring home.

We finished with pizza and beer before heading back to the hotel.