Merapi Revisited

Mt. Merapi from Kaliurang

When we were doing stories about the eruption of Mount Merapi, we met a great guy named Christian who runs a hostel and leads hikes up the volcano. We decided we'd come back for a hike as soon as the volcanic activity cooled down a little. Recently Chad had some interviews to do in Yogyakarta, so we figured we'd seize the opportunity to go to Merapi.

We flew to Yogya and then took a taxi to a pedicab to a minivan to a bus. Downtown Yogya is pretty urban, so it was a relief to see crowded streets give way to green fields, and to feel the road steepen as the bus began to climb toward Merapi.

Our hike wouldn't start until early the next morning, so we checked into Christian's place in Kaliurang and went for a walk. Kaliurang is a great little tourism and farming town. There seemed to be some kind of sculpture contest going on; there were statues all over town made out of commonly found materials, each labeled with the number of a different neighborhood.

We really liked this statue of a woman.

Then I got caught in a huge spiderweb. You have to be really careful about stuff like that around here. Fortunately I was able to gnaw off my own arm and escape. (If you look closely, you'll see that the spider's abdomen is made out of one of the conical hats rice farmers wear.)

To be continued ...