From ocean depths to mountain tops, and everything in between

I know its been a couple weeks since i've updated last, but i havent really done all that much that is interesting to write about. I've really only spent the last couple weeks surfing, drinking, river rafting, getting attacked by monkeys, chilling on white sandy beaches with turquois waters, becoming a certified scuba diver, swimming underwater with sharks, triggerfish, sea turtles, eels, and any type of tropical fish you can think of, climbing the second highest mountain in indonesia, swimming in a volcano crater lake, and hanging out with hot little indonesian girls who think we are gods. So you can see why not all that much is worth writing about. I'm being sarcastic of course, as usual. I just have to rub it in.

So yeah, if you're still reading on and don't hate me by this point, i can go into a bit more detail. I think i last left off in Bali, where we stayed there way too long for a being a package tourist destination. The only fun things there were surfing (which, by the way, is more difficult than it looks). If any of you plan to try it, make sure you keep the nose of your board up or you'll do face plants into the water, slam your face in the sand, and then, only if you're lucky, get smoked in the back of your head with the board. its a tough life out here in paradise, but i suppose its worth it. Other than surfing, we basically just drank, went to clubs, and spent the days wandering around and eating mcdonalds Mcflurrys. We did go white water rafting, which was pretty fun. The raft in front of us smoked a cliff and flipped over. Me and darcy were lauging our faces off as our guide was going nuts trying to paddle up to them and help them. One of the girls was just getting carried away down the river with the funnies look of fear and helplessness in her eyes. Me and darcy smiled and waved at her. It was all good though. she eventually got to shore and we went out drining with her and her boyfriend later that night so there were no hard feelings.

Fiom kuta bali we made a brief detour to a monkey forrest, where we bought bananas to feed to the cute little guys and Gavin made fun of me for putting mine in my backpack. He was hardcore and walked right in with them in his hand. Oddly enough, as soon as the first monkey spotted him, it jumped on him and started going nuts. so as he was running around screaming, he tried to give me the bananas and i kindly rejected the offering, so he ended up throwing them on the ground and that was the end of them bananas. What i learned there is that monkeys, no matter how cute they may look, are vicious, greedy, little bastards.

Yada yada yada, we took off from the monkey forrest to the island of Lombok (in case you're keeping track at home and playing the "where is Ryan today" game). I'm skipping out so many details cause i just don't have time to write them all. I should note that the ride from monkey forrest to the ferry terminal was the most scared i had ever been in my entire life. Anyway, we got to lombok and yada yada yada, a few days later and another car ride from hell (which was a new record of the most scared i have ever been in my entire life, surpassing the two day old record by about ten fold), we ended up in the gili islands (remember to not that if you're playing the "where was Ryan last week" game at home. Gili Trawangan to be exact, a small paradise island to the north of Lombok, whith white sandy beaches, turquois water and an awfully tempting dive shop with the opportunity to become a certified scuba diver. So after hemming and hawing over the $275 US cost for a couple days, i decided that I'm here in vacation, I worked my ass off to get here, and screw it, i wanna swim with the fishies! So me and Dacry spent 4 days in school, doing homework and tests, and got to go on 4 dives as part of our training. Who knew it was so much training and knowledge to swim underwater? But anyhoo, i cannot express in words how beautiful it is, swimming underwater in tropical oceans and yeah, like i said, i cant express it in words. Its freeking cool. So we were on the island for about 7 days all together and we started getting restless, so we finally took off to the base town of Mount Rinjani back on lombok, where we made preparations for the most strenuous physical activity of my entire life. Once again, who knew climbing the second highest mountain in indonesia would be tough work eh? Add to that, the fact that we were too cheap to get a guide, to cheap to get porters to carry our gear, and even to cheap to fork out the extra dollar a day for a good tent. We went with the more economical "not so good tent" that fell over during the night. So yeah, to give an idea, almost everyone that does that trek has at least a porter with them to carry the gear and cook your food for the three days you're gone. we didn't need one though, we're from canada, land of mountains. We basically survived off mr noodles and boiled volcanic lake water.

The hike up the first day took 9 hours and 45 minutes to the crater rim, where we watched the most beautiful sunset of my entire life. we were so high we were above the freeking clouds! i wish i could upload my photos here cause the view was simply amazing. the next day me and gavin hiked down the 2 hour jouney to the crater lake (it should have taken an hour and a half, but we got lost and had to climb down a cliff which, in hiensight was pretty dumb, but we had no choice cause we had to get down to boil water in order to survive. we made it down alive though, boiled our water, and hiked back up to the crater rim where D'Arcy "i don't have the energy to go to the lake" Hamilton was waiting for us to bring him back water. We camped there that night and then woke the next morning and made the knee breaking climb down to the bottom of the great beast where we chugged a shitload of water to feed our dehydrated bodies (we pretty much elected to starve our thirsts rather than drink the boiled lakewater). Thats the very basic version of the trek though, for i don't have time to write it all. I did get to see my sunrise from the top if an indonesian volcano though, which was awesome. that was one of the number one things i wanted to do on this trip and its done and out of the way. And for all you guys at home who are jealous, remember, it aint all beaches and beer, i had to work for that one. it was tough!

So moving on in my extremely abbreviated summary, we are currently on the island of sumbawa, chilling out in a town called Sumbawa Basar, deciding what to do next. theres so many possibilities and so little time that its hard to make a decison. we can go hike into hill tribes, see ancient ruins and caves, go to a nature reserve with tones of marine and animal life, go scuba diving, hike more volcanos, or move on to the island of komodo and see the komodo dragons! not enough time to see it all though, which is really frustrating. Its a tough life out here.