valar morghulis: A Sweet Birthday on The Sweetest Place

I turned 17 this year. Turning seventeen is a very big deal for me because this is the year when you legally be considered as a grown up. So people would really expect you to act like one, therefore you would feel obligated to become more responsible in your action.

Because being 17 is very crucial for most people in Indonesia, they tend to celebrate this specific birthday bigger than the birthdays they've ever had before. And so I also wanted to celebrate my 17th birthday.

My birthday is on March 16th. That day this year, my dear friends threw a little surprise for me in Pizza Hut. And later in April, I took them to Papandayan to have a little birthday getaway. And I like to share our experience, here.

Sunday, April 13th

We gathered somewhere near school very early in the morning, like at 6. While I waited for all of my friends to come, I ate some food that my friends brought, and listen to the parent's conversation. After everyone was already there, we finally started our ride to Garut with the bus.

On the way to Garut, the bus got troubled and we all had to get off the bus and wait for about half an hour at the toll. Thankfully the weather was nice, so spending time outside the bus turned out the be better than when we were inside the bus. When the bus was finally working, we continued our journey to Garut which was such a very long ride.

At last, we've arrived at Garut. We stopped at a gas station and switch vehicles, which were trucks. The ride from the gas station to the base post didn't take too much time. When we got to the starting place, we ate lunch and prepare our hike at Papandayan Mountain. Unfortunately, when we were just about to start our hike, the rain started pouring. Therefore we needed to take our raincoat first, and after that we started the journey.

The journey started off very silent since it's kinda devastating to hike in the rain. The path was rocky, and the sulfur crater made this weird smell, but personally I still could enjoy the stunning view it offered. After the rain stopped, we took a small break and took some photos. But our guide told us to hurry because it was getting late and the later it was, the thicker the fog would be, and it would need much effort to walk inside the thick fog. So we hurried up, and got to this spot which were a part of the dead forest i think. Some of my friends were still behind, so we, again, took a break and of course some pictures. We continued the journey and the fog were literally getting very thick. The trouble wasn't that we couldn't see clearly, but that it was getting very cold. Right before we got to the camp site, Pondok Saladah, we first needed to cross the bog. I remembered going to Papandayan for the first time and having to cross that same bog... I... don't like it.