Ranu Kumbolo Trip (PART 1) Preparation & Tips!

Hei guys!!
Today’s post is going to be different, because it’s not going to be about foods or cafe or restaurant, but it’s going to be about my traveling journey to a place called Ranu Kumbolo! It’s basically a (beautiful) Lake which in the foot of Semeru Mountain. And to be honest, this is not a quite well planned trip for me, because I was asked by Amey to join the trip just less than a week before, and what the hell was I thinking when I said, “Yes” very easily just because of YOLO. hahahaha *always careless*

PREPARATION

So, FIRST THING FIRST! If you ever ever ever going to Ranu Kumbolo, please do plan well! :

1. Research about Ranu Kumbolo 
   Well, at least you know where you’re going, what’s the place looks like, how to get there, how long you’ll be staying there, is it going to be hot, or cold, what are you going to do there, what you should prepare for the trip and stuffs.
2. Prepare your self & your body
   So, yes I was told that we’re going on a hike, but I didn’t know that it’s going to be six hours of hiking, with heavy stuffs on your back, and the road that you’ll be facing is a very small, rocky, some are slippy, some are very slippy, and most of them are not safe! If you ever slipped or fell, I don’t think you’re ever going to make it out alive after you fall, haha..
3. Prepare your stuffs
   You have to know, like REALLY REALLY understand what to bring and what not, or you might regret it for the rest of the trip. So normally, you’re going to stay in at least one night in Ranu Kumbolo. To hike, you need something comfortable to be wore, and when you arrived, it’s going to be pretty cold, at night, it will be colder, even the coldest you’ll ever experienced (if you never experience winter before). There are no such thing as a proper toilet, you’ll stay in a tent, cook your own meal, with no clean water to consume unless you bring it yourself from the bottom. No one will take out your trash, so you’ll be responsible for it, and many more.

Would you believe me if I said I did none of the above and I know nothing about all that before I experienced it myself? LMAO. The only thing that I know about Ranu Kumbolo were just the pictures of the lake and the pictures of the Milky Way, and that’s it, hahah.. Alright, call me whatever you want. But I’m a very kind person still! I make this post especially for you so that you won’t experience a nightmare like I did there, haha..

Disclaimer :
I'm here representing a girl who can't stand cold weather, so if you thing you're okay with the cold, then you might adjust your stuff according to what you need.

So there’s twelve of us in a group, six guys and six girls. One thing that you should note here is, it's better if you're going with the people that you know well or go with people that you know will have your back when something bad happen. Because to some people, hiking can be really tough. When a person is really tired, or they feel like giving up, or when people is really pushed to their limit, you can really see their true colors. Some might have sympathies, but you’ll never know, some might be a little selfish and just don’t care anymore too. 

It is also important to have more guys or at least equal amount of guys in the group, because obviously, they can carry heavier things, and they have more stamina, and you can rely on them better than your girl friends in the mountain. Also, it is a huge advantage to have someone who's already knows the field, someone experienced with hiking, who’s been there before or at least someone athletic in the group. They will come in handy 1000% guarantee.

I am really grateful for my group though. I was considered as a new comer in the group, I decided to join the trip just less than a week before we departed to Ranu Kumbolo. I only know one friend very well, two are acquaintances, and the rest of the group are totally a new friend for me. Some of us (including myself) were a first time hiker, but they were very kind, caring, understanding and very supportive, though we were facing a lot of hard times especially while we hike with these heavy bags. So I was feeling so blessed to be a part of this group. 🙂

To sum it up! For girls : just bring your date, your boyfriend, a guy who’s close to you at the moment. For guys : be prepared, hahaha.. If you don’t want to have those extra kilos on your back, you can just go by yourself without your girl OR you can always hire a porter as well, hahaha.. Praying and listening to music does help to smooth out your hiking journey, don't worry, if I can do it, you can do it too. :)

WHAT YOU SHOULD BRING

These are the things that you should have in a group :

1. A WATERPROOF / RAINPROOF TENTS
   I’m not even kidding when I capslocked the waterproof part, seriously be prepared. The size of the tent can be various. It depends on how many people that would be staying inside. Your group decide.
2. Cooking Utensils & Someone who can cook :D
   Gas Stove, Gas, Pot or Pan or both, Water Filter (you can actually use the lake water to cook, use water filter instead of bottled water) A good cook will always be useful as well in the camp, hahaha.. On our trip, we got two amazing cook, and I don’t think my tummy could survive without them!
3. Enough Clean Water & Food Stock
   I think if a person bring two bottle of a 1,5 liter water, it will be enough. Well but it also depends on how much you drink throughout the day. I think I didn’t drink that much during the trip, just simply because I normally don’t drink that much either. It’s important to calculate how much bottles should you bring, because I’m telling you, those waters are very heavy to carry up in the mountain. But again, your group decides. For the food stock, you can bring rice, indomie, instant soup, sardine, corned, coffee, energen, or energy bars.
4. A Big Black Trash Bag + A Rope to Tie it Securely 
   Since it’s in the mountain, they don’t have a cleaning service, so everyone is responsible to keep the mountain clean from trashes. I'm reminding you again that you'll bring all your trashes with you, all the way down. So, whether it’s going to be in one BIG trash bag, and you’ll carry it alternately with your group. OR you divide it the first time evenly to the guys. MY SUGGESTION : Tied the trash bag to your backpack, and put it in a double trash bag, because most of the times, the trash smells really bad. You don’t want people behind you die smelling it, do you? *yuck*
5. One is enough for everyone
   Tooth Paste | A rope (could be useful for drying out your thing in the morning, then for tying your trash bags after) | Mosquito Repellent | Sunblock (buy the biggest one, highest spf, and suitable for face + body) | Small Petroleum Jelly, Oriflame’s will do (at night it can get very cold, and your lips could bleed anytime, better to protect it) | Oxygen Spray (it depends on the people who needs it)

And these are the things that you should bring for yourself :

1. A Back Pack
2. A VERY COMFY, WARM & (perhaps) Waterproof Sleeping Bag
3. Mattress
4. A Very Warming Jacket
5. Warming Socks
6. Warming glove
7. A wide shawl (you can use that to cover your neck, or to cover yourself while you pee in the bush)
8. Mask (some places are so dusty)
9. Flashlight (because at night is very very dark, and you need one in your tent too)
10. Plate & Cutleries
11. Batteries for your camera (if you bring one)
12. Counter Pain, Warming Oil (if you can’t stand cold weather), Antangin, and your own preferable medicines.
13. A thick plastic waterproof zipper clutch for your gadget
14. Extra Ziplock for anything important
15. Lots of plastic to put all of your things inside the bag and later might be for your trashes.
16. Poncho (a thin raincoat)
17. Heat Tech Clothing
18. Sweaters
19. Wet & Dry Tissue

WHAT'S OPTIONAL

1. A Tripod
   If you want to shoot the Milky Way in the middle of the night, you should bring it. You might borrow from your friend, but I don’t really recommend it, because shooting the Milky Way can be really tricky! It’s not like you’re going to shoot it three times and you’ll get the best picture right away. You will need a lot of patience and trying for more than 20 times (that if you have a lot of time). So yeah, for this, I suggest you to bring your own gear. And in the morning, your tripod can be useful for hanging your clothes if you need to dry them out, lol
2. A Cap & A Sunglasses
   To keep your face and your eyes covered from the sunlight
3. Kerpus / Ear cover
To keep your ear covered from the cold
4. A Marker & A white paper
   To take pictures in Ranu Kumbolo, in case you want to shout something to someone
5. An Adult Diaper
   Their public …. (I’m not sure if I can refer it as a toilet) is REALLY NASTY! It looks nasty and smells nasty. There are probably 5-7 rooms, and inside, there’s only a hole, no water, no tissue, no nothing. If you’re lucky you can see shit! Hahah.. So if you don’t want to pee there, I suggest you pee in the bush or pee in the adult diaper. 
6. A Towel
   Just in case.

WHAT YOU DON'T NEED TO BRING

1. A Power Bank
   There will be no signal in Ranu Kumbolo. You will have a slight signal in the first station, second station and the third station for your phone (XL don’t have signal there, I bought Simpati just to upload some endorsement on Instagram at every station, lol). To be honest, you won’t use your phone anyways, especially if you’re bringing your camera along. Unless if you’re only using your camera phone, you can bring a mini power bank. Turn off all of your signal to save your battery.
2. Fix Lens
   The dumbest mistake I did, lol. I brought my fix lens with me, thinking I might shoot something with bokeh effect, but no. I didn’t use it at all. I even afraid it will be foggy inside the lens so I didn’t touch my lens at all. While it’s pretty heavy.
3. Make Up
   Because I’m pretty concerned about my ugly skin, I thought bringing my make up will help, but no. I didn’t touch it either. And I was at the point where I didn’t even care as well. Even though I’m so sad to show people all the pimples on my face, but what can I do, hahaha..
4. Toiletries
   You won’t take a bath there, no need to bother, haha..
5. Too much money
   I think I only spend less than 30k there, the first one is when I ate at Ranu Pani before the hike and the second one when we all got back from Ranu Kumbolo to Ranu Pani again.

WHAT YOU SHOULD WEAR

Top :
You can wear a normal short sleeve shirt, especially if you’re sweaty, because you can’t really predict the weather there. My tips for you is to wear something (body) long for your top, because when you’re wearing backpack, the friction of the bag and your back will cause your shirt to be automatically pulled up as you’re hiking. And when you notice that your shirt is already pulled up, it will be pretty hard to pull it back down again, unless you take off your back pack first (which is pretty troublesome). So yeah, wear something long. 🙂

You can also take out a thin layer of sweater or jacket, in case it gets cold all of a sudden or maybe the sun suddenly exposed too much on your skin and you don’t want to get tanned. A long sleeve will come in handy. You can wear it right away, and when you don’t need it anymore, you can tie it around your waist, simple right?

Bottom :
For the bottom, you have to wear something comfortable, because there’s going to be a lot of movements on your leg, you’re hiking, remember? Whether it’s a legging, or a training shorts, you decide what’s the best. I recommend a dark color, and long pants. Because you will be sitting on the ground most of the time, and you won’t even care anymore, because you’re too tired, and there are a lot of high grasses and plants and bugs and mosquitos and mountain stuffs that’s gonna be pretty unusual for you to see, so you better wear something long if you don’t want them to be near your skin, lol.

Shoes :
Okay. This one, you can actually wear any shoes you don’t like (definitely won’t use that shoes again). JUST DON'T WEAR SOMETHING SLIPPERY. Because even hiking shoes or hiking sandals can slip on  a wet ground. And my suggestion is to wear a shoes that's on a slightly bigger size than your feet. Because when you’re on your way down, you will put a lot of weight on your feet, and if you’re wearing a tight shoes, there’s a big chance for you to hurt your toe fingers while you’re walking down the mountain. And trust me, it’s not going to be delightful (regarding of how long you’ll walk)

Okay guys that’s it for the preparation to Ranu Kumbolo, I hope this post helps you! And I will post six more post about the trip :

• RANU KUMBOLO TRIP PART I : PREPARATION & TIP
• Ranu Kumbolo Trip Part II : From Surabaya to Ranu Pani
• Ranu Kumbolo Trip Part III : Tough Hike! 
• Ranu Kumbolo Trip Part IV : The Darkest yet Brightest Night in My Life