This is a very overdue post. Working, married and an active son sure took away all the time I used to have for blogging. Within 2 years, I had visited the same mountain twice. One in April 2016 when I was 4 months pregnant and another one in October 2017 when my son was 11 months old. The mountain was Mount Papandayan.
#1 Why Mount Papandayan?
This mountain is easy to hike, not too many steep trek and a lot of plain trek. It’s not too tiring for someone who’s pregnant or carrying a baby…at least that was what my husband and I thought. Being pregnant didn’t stop my desire to go hiking and having a husband who understand the desire well was wonderful. When I was single, I can reach the camping site in about 2 hours, when I was pregnant it became 4 hours and it became 3 hours when I carried my (more than) 9 kilogram son 🙂
#2 Just the two of us and then became eight
In 2016, I went to Mount Papandayan with my husband using public transportation. We left around 9 pm, took a night bus and then continued with small minibus and Ojek (kinda like taxi but with motorcycle). In 2017, I went back with my husband, foster children and my dearest son. This time we used private car.
#3 The Crater
In 2016, the sulfur gas was quite thick and we were a bit worried with my pregnancy so didn’t stay long in the crater. In 2017, it wasn’t as thick as 2016, we even had time to have a rest near the crater. We took several photos here without having to cover our face. My son slept all through the walk near the crater (fortunately)
#4 The Warung
In both year, we had another rest after we passed the crater, the difference was in 2016 I laid down for a while to rest my back and we didn’t want to be too tired considering the pregnancy. In 2017, we also rest quite a while at the same warung (shop) so that we could give a chance for Anka to get out of his baby carrier. He enjoyed his moment there, laughing and playing with the water bottles.
#5 Pondok Saladah
Pondok Saladah (the camping ground) was soo different. In 2016, it was packed with tents, we had to find area far from the rest room so that we could had a bit of peace and better view. In 2017, Pondok Saladah had changed so much…there was a bungalow there and more warungs. What’s so interesting in 2017 was the fact that there were no other campers but us. Only the eight of us in that huge camping ground!! WE built out tent inside the bungalow so that we could be saver during rain and from hogs.
#6 Camping
In 2016, the view outside our tent was better than in 2017. In 2016 there only my husband and I who had lunch and dinner…so happy that in 2017, there were more of us. Lunch became merrier
#7 The Hogs
Papandayan is famous for its huge hogs. in 2017, we didn’t see any hog because it was quite crowded, so even if there was a hog, the chance of seeing it was small. In 2017, since there was no other but us, we got to see several hogs nearby. There were really huge. Thank God we were saved in bungalow. They don’t usually attack campers but they forage the tent to find food.
#8 My Husband and My Son
No words for this…just the changing image inside the tent 🙂
#9 Before and After Anka
So happy to be back there…Anka as 4 month fetus and as an 11 month old baby 🙂
#10 Future Us and Us
In 2016, there was a family with two children. They had a son age 20 months. We took picture with him and the caption I used in my FB was “Dengan Galuh (usia 20 bulan). Semoga 25 bulan lagi, foto ini terulang dengan si dede yang lagi di perut” (With Galuh, hopefully 25 months from now, we can take picture like this with our own baby). In happened in 2017…less than 25 month 🙂
#11 Dead Forest
The two of us…the three of us…the eight of us #love
#12 Picture of me and picture of my big family
ln 2016, my husband took picture of me (ONLY me)…in 2017, he took picture of me, our son and our foster children.
#13 Happy Son
He sure has our genes…a father and a mother who love hiking. He didn’t cried except when we had to keep him inside the tent at night because it was so cold outside. He cried because he wanted to go out and played outside. Apart from that, he was so happy.
We went there again in 2018 🙂 But I am not going to share it here because it would be too much to write 🙂 I shared it in my instagram ( Opening, Blog post 1, Blog post 2, Blog post 3)
This is Anka enjoying his hiking moment 🙂
https://www.instagram.com/p/BsMFOwfg_9L/
Sharing this moment in Thursday Thirteen
Polychrome Interest 
Good to see you back for a post! You and your family look so happy! Wonderful pictures and narrative.
Thank you Karel.
I am still on and off. Motherhood and working really makes it difficult to write
Yup. I totally get it.
Nice to see you posting! What a lovely tribute to your life, with the mountain hike as a narrative throughout. It is interesting to see you growing older and your son growing up. I think the foster children is a new thing – I don’t recall reading about that before. That’s a hard job so good for you for doing it.
Thank you Dew.
Unfortunately I am still not that active. I am still unable to manage my time well. I have written about them before but probably not in thirteen Thursday.
Why were there so few hikers the second time? Maybe a weekend before?
I don’t blame you for being nervous around the hogs. They can get so big, and they aren’t defenseless.
I hadn’t realized you could get so cold, being so close to the equator.
Yes before was weekend and also before was not as expensive as the second time.
Hahaha I think our version of cold is nothing compared to you. I remembered being so cold in Mount Rinjani, wearing thick jacket and a foreigner just walk by wearing a tanktop.
I had a great time reading your post. I almost felt like I was there. 🙂 The changes between the two visits is like night and day.
Thank you Susie. It was amazing how different the two visits were.