Pioneer Trekking to Mt. Batutara 先鋒攀登Batutara火山
September 13-14, 2023
I had always wanted to visit Mt. Batutara on Komba Island, and with the help of Richard, the owner of Hotel Rejeki in Lewoleba, my dream came true a week ago.
Late July this year, I contacted Rich, whom I had met in 2017 while staying at his hotel on my way to Lamalera and climbing Mt. Ile Ape, to help find a guide and a boat to take me to Komba Island.
I had several boat types to choose from, a tiny 3-person boat, a medium-sized boat, an RIB speedboat or a 15 GT fishing boat, all with varying prices.
The speedboat would have taken about two hours to reach Komba Island, but since I was not in a big hurry, and the rental was Rp.13 million (US$850.00), I chose the 15 GT fishing boat. It was also the safest way to travel there. The sea around the island is known for its big waves. The 15 GT fishing boat also comes with a small dinghy to take us to land.
As for the guide, I’m lucky to find Ocep Karez who is a professional climber.
Rich, who has no prior experience in volcano climbing came along too after I told him it would be an easy 4-hour hike round trip as the volcano is only 748 meters high.
At 4:45 AM we arrived at Lewoleba jetty and set sail right away. We brought just water and lunch/dinner boxes with us, no ropes and no flashlights. The waves were huge and the three of us suffered from seasickness and had to lie flat most of the time to counter the feelings of nausea.
After 5½ hours we reached Komba Island and circled the island clockwise to search for a good beach on which to land. When we found one we dropped anchor and took the dinghy to the beach.
Around 12:00 PM we started climbing towards the summit. We had to bushwhack our way up to the tree line, climbed steep hills and even scaled a few cliffs. By 4:15 PM we reached the tree line and hit the summit 20 minutes later. We were fortunate to have Ocep leading us as he is very skillful and knows how to maneuver dangerous paths.
The view at the top is incredibly gorgeous.
We started our descent at around 5 PM. I had to inch down slowly on my buttock as the steep slope made me feel too dizzy to stand up. Ocep walked down slowly behind me guiding me along.
On the way down towards the beach we tried to find the path we had marked on the way up but somehow we lost our way. We could see our boat below and headed for it but several times we discovered that the path we had chosen was too steep to climb down all the way to the beach so we had to backtrack, climbing up again in an effort to find a better way down. Hours passed and since it was a moonless night, the only light we had was from Ocep’s phone flashlight, so we couldn’t make out clearly if we were on a good path down. After several failed attempts in the blackness, at 1:00 AM we decided to stop and sleep. We were running out of water and exhausted so we just collapsed on the forest floor without a tent with the light on. Ocep slept soundly for 5 hours. Richard claimed he didn’t sleep but I could hear him snoring. I couldn’t sleep due to jet lag so I meditated. It was amazing that none of us got insects bites while we rested.
At 6 AM, we started again trying to reach the beach but we failed again on several of our attempts. We were totally exhausted. Often times while Ocep was searching for a path, Richard and I would just simply collapse and sleep for a few minutes to recharge. Ocep would call out to us to resume our attempt to get to the beach when he thought he had found a way.
At 10:30 AM, after having hiked for 12 hours the day before, no sleep, no food and no water, I told Ocep I only had enough energy to hike down, not up once again. Luckily at this point, we saw a rocky beach below us but it was very steep and looked dangerous to go down because there were no vegetations to grab onto but we decided we would take the chance anyway!
Ocep made a cut at a long tree branch and we took turns going down grabbing the branch on the way down. It was lucky for us that ¾ of the way was covered in small volcanic rocks and the lower part was sandy. Richard slid down first and lo and behold, he went straight down without stopping. We could not see him and didn’t hear a sound from him afterwards. We thought we would search for his body later…
Ocep and I slid down together with me sitting behind him. We made it safely to the beach at 11:30 AM. It was about 1 km to the right of our starting point the previous day.
As for Richard, he was sitting on the beach in his undies ready to take a swim to wash off all the dirt covering his face and bruised body.
The dinghy picked us up after our bath.
We arrived at Lewoleba jetty around 5:00 PM, happy but exhausted!!