Are you busy from your activities and have a craving to go to nature? This place may be will be the answer. The place that will give you beautiful feeling and awesome experience because this place is gorgeous! May be God is smile when create this place.
That place is a mountain names PAPANDAYAN.
A Tourist Park Papandayan Mountain located in Garut, West Java, Indonesia. That's around 3-6 hours from Jakarta by a car. On 11th February this year, I and my friends arranged a hiking to Papandayan Mountain because Papandayan is still sloping compared to others mountain in Indonesia. Because me and three peoples are beginners, my pro hiker friend recommend to us to go to Papandayan. Yup, Papandayan is fit for beginners! (eventually is still not that slop like my pro friend told!)
We went around 1.00 a.m from Jakarta and arrived Garut around 5.00 a.m. Along the way, I am sleep therefore I don't felt the journey was long. After we were reaching Garut, we heading to Cisurupan, the name place where Papandayan mountain be.
the smoke that is seen rising into the sky is smoke from sulfur
After reach the Papandayan area, we doing some morning routine, like breakfast, take a wash (face), going to bathroom, and etc, we looking around parking area which was shown the beautiful Papandayan from apart. Let me show you Papandayan Mountain from an observation tower.
Before reach the gate of Papandayan Mountain, I and my friends went to Observation Tower and enjoying our morning with reposeful. This observation tower is made by cement materials which had two floors. That observation tower is high and there is no lift to reach the top unless the stairs.
At that time, there no one went to Observation Tower, so that was nice moment to enjoying the nature from observation tower. Walking up the stairs is kinda tired but what the tower offered was made the tired feel nothing.
This is the view will you get when you going to the top of observation tower. You will see the sun popping out from Cikurai Mountain. Unfortunately, we reach the Papandayan after sunrise, so we skip the sunrise from this tower. If only we could see the sunrise, the picture would be more beautiful than that. But, yeah, it still looks beautiful and refreshful been there in the morning. Ah, I should take a cup of hot coffee, because watching that view is like feels lacking without a cup of hot coffee.
And this is the Papandayan Mountain looks from Observation Tower. It was mountain with 2.665 mdpl/masl. The day when we came, Papandayan Mountain is bright. The sky was bright blue and the weather was nice. Along the way, we wish that time we tracked, there is no rain, and God was blessed us. I tell you later...
The smoke that you see reaching the sky was the sulfur smoke. From afar, the smoke is looks clear, I have never saw the smoke that clear in the Jakarta, you know well what I mean.
Let's catch up others area!
This is the gate through the Papandayan Mountain. The highlight of this area are Crater, Dead Forest, Edelweiss Cottage and Salada Cottage). The road is divided into two directions, the one side for going to Papandayan and the one from Papandayan. This is still the beginning. Let us show you what the best creation of God in the West Java.
On the right and left of the road to Papandayan, there are many kadaka plants (grass) and mangrove trees. Yup, in Papandayan there is also a mangrove forest that functions to maintain water quality.
out of the gate, you will find these beautiful views. From here you can even see the observatory tower where you saw Mount Papandayan from afar, earlier. Remember, this is still the beginning, but I was already running out of breath because I was too excited and the road to this place was already starting to climb.
Along the way to the top of Papandayan, there a lot This area shows ruins that still look beautiful. The ruins of these hills also produce golden yellow rocks (correct me if I am wrong) which are Sabak Stone. That stones was awesome and looks functional because the stones are the material to made the track.
This road is made by the government to make hikers easier to tracking the Papandayan Mountain. This way is heading to the Crater. Yup, the crater is in the up of those road.
Besides the hiker or tracker, there a lot porters or motorbike services which was offered their merit to going up easily. Looks the tag of by cycle or motor cycle, we should to be careful because sometimes the road can be slip and make the cycle go into a skid, so we should to be careful more.
Before we reach out the Crater, there is little river named Cisaladah River which has cold water and too many rocks around the river. When I looking the river, I had a craving to take a bath there, but it was impossible because I have to climb the mountain, because the journey is still long. Let's moving forward!
This is the crater area which was everyone favorites. Some people occasionally visit Papandayan is just until the Crater and make some contents. Some people may be don't have time to climbing upper or they just had no power to go upper.
This crater is a sulfur crater with a heat of 400 degrees Celcius. Can you imagine it how hot that sulfur? Being around crater is lack because the sulfur smells bad. So we had to heading the next post!
After take a pictures, we moving forward again because we chased by time.
After passed the Crater Area, we went back up and found the next post to rest. However, we did not stop at this post because we had to go up immediately before the sun was directly overhead, because we were not allowed to be up there too late. So we continued up.
There is an exciting story in this section. Some of my friends who were also new to climbing felt deceived by my pro friend's words, he said that Papandayan was a gentle mountain, but for them Papandayan was not that gentle and halfway through this journey he started to run out of breath.
In this position we are almost reach out the Dead Forest. Another very popular site in Papandayan Tourism Park that is a shame to miss. Even though the forest is dead, we will still get a very beautiful view. Because anything that comes from nature is always beautiful.
In this position, we were reach out the Dead Forest and this the dead forest!
After take a rest for some minutes, my friend even fall asleep at the Dead Forest because in those area are quiet windy and cold. It make us have a craving to sleep, but we have to moving forward to the Edelweis Cottage.
This is where Edelweiss is cultivated in Papandayan. Unfortunately, Edelweiss does not flower in February. They say they will grow in September or November where the rainfall is very heavy.
Then we are heading to Salada cottage, the place where hiker camping.
It can be said that the top of our purpose. Even though we were not camping there, because the time shown the lunch, we then ordered some noodles in one of hawkers there. It was fit for enjoying the noodles with friends while the weather is nice.
Not long after we rested and had lunch, it rained heavily. But we couldn't wait for the rain to stop, so we continued our journey down before the afternoon.
To climb Mount Papandayan, we started at 8 am and climbed for 4 hours, arriving at Pondok Selada around 12 pm. To go down, it didn't take as much time as going up. It only took about 2 hours, we arrived at the parking area.
The personel of Papandayan Squad. This is our first trip in 2024. Last year, we were went to Merak Island, which is in one day trip. Even though that was one day trip, we still happy because in the future may be will be difficult to go together due to our business. But I still wish this personel will be have others trip together!
How about you guys? Have you ever go to Papandayan Mountain?!
Watch our vlog about Papandayan Hiking here, in my youtube channel!
Thanks in advance, to read my blog and hope you like my post!
See you on the next post...
Vivie Hardika
Hi, Halo, Annyeong! Welcome to my galaxy.
I have so much imagination in my head. Something that I can't achieve as a human and as a girl. So writing is very challenging. Since Junior High School, I have written whatever I want to write. Without skill, I just write what I want to read. Now I have 12th published novels and all of them are romance.
Yeah, I proudly say that I am a passionate author, traveler wannabe, and blogger.
