Breakfast was at the BMKG complex in Padang Panjang, with a yummy cumin soup with small cubes of rice cake and glass noodles. Very good! Then Sauidi called our faithful Febrit to drive us south. Febrit is a quiet young man, on the thin and quiet side, with spiky hair. He is our general solution to every problem that arises, and a calm driver with nerves of steel. Reminds me a lot of Silverio.
Our expeditionary force set the goal of doing a close inspection of the very large Sinkarak Lake northeast of Padang, which we had visited before, and the much smaller twin lakes of Diatas (the "upper lake") and Dibahwa (the "lower lake"), to the south of Padang, armed with all sorts of preconceived notions.
To get to Lake Sinkarak, we skirted the eastern edge of the Kerinci Seblat National Park, which is the main habitat of the endangered Sumatran Tiger. I was looking for it, but the reclusive carnivore wisely keeps deep into the forest, away from the crazy road traffic. After watching scooters dart in between trucks playing chicken with each other I am truly amazed that we have not seen any major road accidents. One of the golden rules I teach beginning drivers is that you must avoid a head on collision at all costs, which starts by applying the brakes to give the passing car the chance to complete its move, and looking for a way out. That would get you nowhere here, where the technique seems to be to hold your ground until at the last minute the passing car swerves back in place. I am glad Irvan is traveling in the front and Febrit is such a calm driver.
I am convinced that Lake Sinkarak is a tectonic basin, and felt we should at least try to see evidence for the West Sumatra fault on the steep mountain front. We therefore trekked to a distant mosque, high in the mountains, reputed for being close to a waterfall (in the jungle waterfalls create outcrop). Unfortunately local lore says that no one should try to reach the waterfall before mid-day, because bad spirits might be liberated if disturbed too early. So we sat at the local store/tea shop, shooting the breeze with the locals. A good time to check my email, which had a message from Dennis, telling me how he had fallen off his mountain bike and cracked three ribs. Really? At 40 something he should know better than risking an injury to a body that is no longer so easy to mend. I tell you, the new generation is not endowed with my strong sense of self-preservation.
Finally noon came around and we got ready to go. The waterfall was way above us, in the depth of the jungle, so we were to make the first stage on a motorcycle. I was assigned a ratty old thing, with a skinny crazy driver, who told me to glue myself to him, hold tight and lean forward. And off we went, at neck-breaking speed, up the narrow mountain paths, sometimes at slopes that must have been close to 30 degrees. I am a pretty heavy guy, and the skinny kid had to be on his toes to keep his balance, while with the bouncing I started to slide backward, risking thumbing out of the rear of the bike and rolling down the slope and breaking my neck. But I held strong, using a hand in the back frame to stop me from sliding, and another firmly clamped on the hip of the kid to keep my balance. It was the best mountain bike ride ever.
Once we reached a suitable spot in the middle of the dense jungle, our two guides cut stocks for our use, and started another walk through the dense jungle. Fortunately it had not rained for the last few days, so we didn't have to deal with slippery mud. Maybe, just maybe, we could get a glimpse of a Sumatran tiger. It was not to be, but I was precariously tight-rope walking on the edge of a water canal, trying to keep my balance, when a monitor lizard crashed right in front of me going downhill at great speed. It was enormous, with a body the size of a large cat, and must had been no less than a meter long! It gave me quite a start.
We did find the waterfall, and confirmed that it was caused by an alternating sequence of hard quartzites, phyllites, and schists (Irvan had a good time collecting representative samples), and following a different way back we found, within 10 m, the place where the metamorphic rocks came in contact with the vertically-fractured younger volcanic rocks of the Sinkarak basin. I officially called it the fault, a story that was repeated down the vine, and half an hour later we had the official visit of the Chief and the Main Constable of the village, who marked the occasion with the traditional photographs.
Lunch was lavish, as usual, but the sautéed little fish billih (what we would call boquerón in Mexico) was the height of the experience, at least for me who had not had boquerones in an least 10 years.
We reached the twin lakes as sunset was reaching the land, enjoyed a quiet stroll along the shore (which I used to lecture my little environmentalist about the importance of litter and cigarette butts control), and with minimum hard information concluded that the lakes were not connected, and that the upper lake was probably occupying a half graben, whereas the lower lake was some sort of crate lake. Isn't science wonderful?
We made it late to Padang, but not late enough to skip a delicious dinner of grilled fish. I am going to miss these gourmet dinners in the cool nights of Sumatra.
No comments:
Post a Comment