Saturday, November 16, 2013

Hiking in Situ Gunung Forest Park, Sukabumi

It was around 9 a.m. when we left our camp at Tanakita camping ground, located in the beautiful countryside of Sukabumi's Cisaat district, adjacent to Gunung Gede Pangrango National Park.


The sun hid behind the cloudy morning sky as we headed to Situ Gunung Park (still part of Gunung Gede Pangrango National Park) where we hoped to see the locally-famous Curug Sawer waterfall.
It only took 10 minutes to reach the park’s entrance but our guide, Alex, said it was a 1.8-kilometer hike to reach the waterfall from the entrance.
The trail was easy to traverse at first as it was still relatively flat, but then we came across a steep rocky path with many turns, and muddy paths that wound past bushes and trees.
As we traveled deeper into the forest, the sounds of nature became louder, but our ears were strangely filled with a sense of quietness at the same time. The atmosphere excited me.
Alex told us one of his fellow guides had encountered a leopard during a trip further inside the national park’s forest, but his friend was lucky enough not to be harmed because he had managed to maintain calm and collected.
For us, Alex said if we got lucky we might see the tailless monkey, known locally as Owa Jawa.
Our journey took an unexpected turn when one of us got bitten by a leech. Luckily for us, my friend was calm - he even asked me to take picture before he pulled the creature off his skin.
I just concentrated my mind on the beauty of our surroundings as we passed tiny waterfalls. Then, the rumbling sound of a bigger waterfall dismissed any negativity, and soon we were able to see our reward: the amazing sight of Curug Sawer.
The water there felt icy cold and was so clear. The towering Curug Sawer is said to be about 25-30 meters in height.
Our guide said some extreme sport lovers liked to canoe from the top of the waterfall downward. He also said that deeper in the forest was Curug Kembar, another waterfall with a height of up to 80 meters, with views that were even more stunning.


However, due to the gloomy weather, we were unable to spot the rainbows that were said to regularly appear in the morning. Nevertheless, despite not seeing any Owa Jawa or rainbows, seeing and feeling the waterfall itself was amazing.
(Jakpost(Photo by Icha Rahmanti)

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