Days 120 & 121 – Mount Sibayak Volcano

The next stop in our Sumatra tour was a whistle stop stay in Berastagi to climb Mount Sibayak, a stratovolcano complete with steam vents, a crater lake and hot springs. We had opted to do the popular sunrise tour which involves setting off at 4am and climbing up to the ridge to see the sun come up behind the crater. We ummed and ahhed over this as we have had a few disappointing sunrise excursions before where we got up at an ungodly hour only to be rewarded with thick mist, but we decided to take our chances!

We arrived in Berastagi, the town local to the volcano, where we were greeted by the lovely family who owned the guest house. They taught us some great key phrases including how to haggle in the fruit market and how to make sure the veggie meal you order really is vegetarian! Very few people speak English here, so it is very necessary. That evening I ordered the Aglio e Olio pasta (V), needing a break from nasi goreng and carb loading for the next morning’s hike. Tricked by the (V) on the menu, I didn’t use the useful phrases our host taught us and of course my pasta arrived topped with prawns…. Earlier in the day we had more success at the fruit market and came back with some delicious mangoes, mangosteen and mulberries.

When we got back from the fruit market our hosts met us at the door. “Did you feel that?” they asked. The lorries and bikes zooming down the road meant we didn’t feel the 6.3 Magnitude earthquake just 80 miles away, not far by earthquake standards.

At dinner with my now prawn-free pasta, we started to wonder about the safety of climbing a volcano after quite a moderate earthquake. We decided to ask AI “Is it dangerous to climb an active volcano the day after a recent nearby earthquake?”. The answer, “Yes, extremely dangerous for the following extensive reasons”. Hmm not quite what you want to hear. We went back and forth on it a couple of times (“does it make a difference that it’s a stratovolcano?” “yes, that makes it even more dangerous”) and decided to speak to our host who reassured us the volcano was continuously monitored. We decided to take his word for it and headed to bed for our early start. Rowan vindictively told the AI that we were going to do it anyway and it quite worryingly urged us not to put ourselves in danger.

At 4:15am we jumped in the back of a seriously clapped-out van and sat along its benches with four other guests with our guides in the front telling us to “enjoy the body massage” as we crashed along one of the bumpiest roads of the trip to date. We arrived thirty minutes later, still in pitch black and started the ascent. It was a pretty steep climb and despite the very cold conditions we were quickly sweating and pulling our fleeces off.

We got to base camp after about 45 minutes where around 100 tents were set up with domestic tourists spending the night. As it was a national holiday, and busier than usual, our guide decided to take us off to the higher peak, which was a harder climb, but you were rewarded with a much quieter spot to watch the sun come up. Climbing in the dark was pretty hard going, there were lots of loose stones and for the last 100m we were pulling ourselves up with our hands and legs, those sessions in The Reach climbing centre in Woolwich coming into use!

We made it to the top just as the sky started to change colour. A wind had picked up and suddenly it was freezing. Our guide handed round coffee from a flask to try and dethaw us. The sky had been mostly clear from the stars we could see as we were climbing up, but the wind was blowing the clouds in, attempting to sabotage our sunrise. Luckily the wind was blowing the clouds away at the same rate it was blowing them in, so we got to see a fragmented but still beautiful view of the scenery below turning from red to gold.

Once the sun had risen, we started the descent back down, now able to see the beautiful landscape, the crater lake as well as quite how dangerous that scramble up had been!

We headed down to the crater lake, stopping off to see the vents spewing eggy sulphurous steam and colouring the nearby rocks a luminous yellow.

Where the coffee had failed to de-thaw us, walking past one of the steam vents did the trick. They gave off an intense hot air, a bit smelly, but worth it to warm up.

Our guide, who like all Indonesian guides smoked like a chimney, demonstrated his party trick lighting his cigarette from one of the steam vents.

We made it back to the van and headed off to the nearby hot springs for a soak. There were about six different pools of differing temperatures, we opted for the hottest as it had the best view and we cooked ourselves for a while chatting to the rest of our group and congratulating ourselves on the hard climb, breathing a sigh of relief there had been no post-earthquake volcanic activity.

Next up, Lake Toba – one of the world’s largest supervolcanos but a very different experience than that of Mount Sibayak. See why in the next blog!