Volcano, waterfalls and Japanese fortress

2 June 2013

We woke up early to meet Leman, our “becak” driver, at 8:30 am. The guy welcomed us with a big smile, he was our tourist guide during all day.

First, we went to the waterfalls to have a shower under the strong gush. There was noone there. The track was beautiful although some parts were slippery and we had to cross the river several times. In the trip back a snake crossed just in front of Ivan who got really frightened.

After that we went to the volcano, nobody was there either. That was really cool, an important amount of yellowish sulfur rocks surrounded by forest. In some places we could see the boiling water and the smoke produced under the soil, it was also very smelly.

The last activity we did that day was to visit the Japanese fortress, the area has several bunkers built by the Japanese after the Dutch left Indonesia. It also has a good beach for snorkeling. On that beach we meet a family doing a barbecue. They offered us grilled fish but we already had lunch and we were full. The snorkeling was OK , we saw lots of fish, corals , starfish….sea star and more ill. It was still early and we wanted to go to Freddie’s place to enjoy a bit more the big waves we had. Of course Jaime went still for the last snorkeling of the day.

         

At night we had a delicious buffet at Freddie’s. No pajama party, too tired…

Long trip, beautiful island

1 June Singapore-Medan-Banda Aceh-Pulau Weh

 

We had to wake up at 5 am…the alarm o’clock did not ring…the taxi phoned us at 5:30, panic!!! Ready in 5 minutes, hurry up…we reached the airport at 6 am, with enough time to arrive to the gate because we did the checking the day before. From Medan we had another plane to Banda Aceh…we did not lost any of them!! Today gods are with us!!

 

Once in Aceh we had to take a taxi to the ferry terminal, we had to wait until 2 pm for the fast ferry departing to the island. Anyway, the waiting time was quite nice, some people just came to us to talk about Pulau Weh, the 2004 tsunami…

Something we noticed on the trip to the ferry terminal was that a lot of school girls were dressed in the most conservative Muslim stile, even the youngest ones.

 

We arrived around 6pm at Freddies’s hostel in Sumurtiga, our lodge in Pulau Weh, it was in a great location, just facing a beautiful beach. The bungalows were pretty rustic but comfortable, we like this style, we don’t’ need anything else. We had our first snorkeling in the beach nearby and it was ok, plenty of fish but poor in corals, the tsunami destroyed mostly of them and they have not yet been recovered. After snorkeling, Jaime and the kids built a jacuzzi in the beach and covered themselves with sand waiting for the waves to fill up the jacuzzi.

     

At night we had a good dinner to finish an exhausting day.

A curse over us

31 May Singapore-Medan

We had the flight the 31 th may at 7:20 pm. We planned to pick up the kids at the school at 4pm and from there go home quickly, pick up our baggage and book a taxi…So, at 5 pm we were all at home ready to take the taxi and it started raining…no taxi available, around 5:40 Jaime got a taxi at the edge of Buona Vista Rd. Passing but there was an accident near vivo city, the traffic was heavy, the rain even heavier… We were just stocked in the route. We reached the airport at 7:10 pm…you can guess the rest…Is there any curse over us?