"We're Cool. Don't Worry."

Two calls this morning.  That will wake you up.  The vacation mode is almost over.  But at least I had my health back.  Still some chortling and gurgling down below, to be sure, but I could now safely walk beyond the immediate perimeter of safe toilet seating. That was good.  I’d arranged to have a driver take us out this morning.  And ten minutes before he was due, he texted me to say he was here.

Our new driver was a pleasant, if somewhat wispy man who said the valley we wanted to see was a three-hour drive from here.  I dismiss this as nonsense, publicly, repeatedly, because the trip depends upon it.  No one, including myself, is expecting a three-hour ride.  The island doesn’t look more than one hundred kilometers across.  My GPS was telling me it would be a one hour drive from here.  "We're cool.  Don't worry."   

I was on a call.  Let’s forge ahead.  I’ve been bed-ridden for too long.  Trying to focus on a call for the first thirty minutes, I was absorbing Lombok roadside posters of politicians and clothing makers and cell phone dream people in parallel.  Two and a half hours later it’s clear that our driver was certainly correct.  The traffic is awful and the total trip out to this destination will certainly require three hours.  The GPS keeps broadcasting the same amount of time no matter how far we've traveled and quickly loses all credibility.  Climbing the broad base of the volcano now on our way to Sembalun.  I hope we have something to see for all our efforts.

What we couldn’t see, the drone could see.  We came to the bluff at the top of the hill, which continued to rise though the road returned down and further down.  A somewhat unconvincing gatekeeper of the concrete slab that served as an observation deck asked us for ten thousand rupiah per head to take in the view.   I asked.  He insisted.  I paid.  We moved through and considered the canopy and the valley below.   Soon my step son had a drone up fifty meters above us.   

Watching it return to him, hovering out there for a while, knowing how easy it would be to arm these things, I considered the homeland:  A gun rights lobby could certainly argue for on owners rights to shoot drone guns.  I stared at the drone.  If I thought it was armed I'd be paralysed for fear of being sprayed.  Now it came closer and dropped, preparing to go forward, slowly and, it, has hit the concrete wall and fallen, down into the brush below, out of sight.  Undesired.  I'd like to say that I dove down the six feet slope shelf without hesitation, but surely I hesitated and considered the drop as did my step son. The brush didn’t seem particularly thick, but the jump down from the wall and getting back up would be work of uncertain exertion, and before you knew it, a local kid was already down in there, digging into the canopy.  He found, we cheered, he returned, we tipped, we expressed thanks.

The spine of the mountain arched into the mist.  The driver pointed to the valley below.  Food is down that way.  Much as I wanted the discovery to continue it was time to go, not so long after arriving.  Along the way back, down the twisting road, the grey monkeys with their Sam Clemens moustaches, even on their babies, and the larger black monkeys that stretched menacingly in the close canopy, primates have all seemingly been trained to beg and stood along the roadside waiting, hoping with every turn we took. 

The ride back was uneventful and I considered the tropical landscape.  "Yes." the driver explained.  To see that lake you needed to climb the mountain.  Takes many days."  I checked to see if I'd spelled caldera correctly.  

Thursday, 01/04/18