My vacation was really cool. Once the weekend hit Andrew, Jason and I road our bikes about 2 hours out of town to Brastagi. We hiked up the volcano there, I had already been up to the crater but this time we headed for the summit. Last time when I headed up the volcano we walked all the way from town, and headed over the other side which took about 6 hours. The first part of that walk was really boring though. You just walk along this actual road for the longest time when you get to a point when you're like shit isn't this going to get any better. That's when you finally reach the base of the mountain. We road our motorbikes to that point to save some time and so we could spend more of that time at the top. Time to take a memorial like shot...
After climbing back down from the volcano and getting back to town we were pretty exhausted. We each had a few beers with dinner then we all decided we needed a nap before we did anything else. We all headed for a nap but none of us woke up until the next morning at like 8, we had slept for about 12 hours. After breakfast we hopped on our bikes and flew back to Medan.
After a few days of just hanging out Jason and I were headed for Lake Toba. We wanted to ride our bikes to make it a big trip. We decided to take the long way around the lake to get to the peninsula to make it an even bigger trip. We could of shaved a few hours by going to a ferry, which would take us across the lake to the peninsula but a ferry is never as cool as you think.
Leaving from Medan and taking the long way around to Lake Toba took about 8 hours.
Minus one hour for lunch, we were on the bikes for 7 hours. We would stop from time to time to take pictures and to stretch our legs, sitting on a bike for that long cramps you up quite a bit.
The best stretch of road we came across was when we about 3 hours or so away. It was a curvy ass road on this side of this mountain. We were just able to throw our bikes in neutral and cruise on down. This was the view from the top...
and this was the shot from the bottom...
...fucking dope.
When we first got to TOBA we stayed at this guest house with some friends we knew were there. For the next 4 nights we stayed at an even nicer guest house called MAS Cottages. Our rooms were about 10 steps away from the lake, we were able to wake up and just walk out the door then into the Lake for a swim. It was really awesome there. The Island is called Samosir and it's connected to mainland Indonesia by a small stretch of earth. Our guesthouse was on the Peninsula Tuk Tuk. The lake/peninsula is completely surrounded by huge mountains and the whole middle of the peninsula is a huge mountain as well. You can find roads that lead up to the top of the mountain in the middle but they are a bit tricky. One of the days Jason and I attempted to head up one route. We had made it pretty close to the top with our bikes when it got a litte messy with mud and crazy agressive. It was pretty intense but definitely worth it. At one point when we had stopped these two guys were heading by with a herd of cattle. They said they were heading to the top as well and would guide us the rest of the way, we followed on with bikes until it got way too impossible with muck, so we walked from there on.
Once on the top it doesn't feel like you're on top of a mountain because it is just valleys of hills, it's just that the top goes on for a long time. There is a fairly large lake up there too, they call it the lake within a lake. We hung out with the two cattle guys while they had their cattle bathing and drinking. We finished up there and headed back to our bikes and back to the guesthouse, we desperately needed to because we could feel our flesh burning. Always remember to re-apply kids.
Most of the week was just spent in or around the Guesthouse area, they had good food, good times and good vibes. We did to more biking around Samosir to explore but most of the week was spent relaxing just like we wanted.
We headed back to Medan on Sunday the 28th. We took a wrong turn at one point on the way back which took us on a little bit of a different route. It had us still headed to Medan so it wasn't the end of the world. It still took the same amount of time.
Once back in Medan we just did our usual day-day Medan business and we still had one more week till work. Didn't do much for New Years, I spent enough over the holidays already so I wasn't looking to spend much more. A few of us just relaxed at the house with some drinks, wii and fireworks. It was pretty chill and damn good.
