Gunung Sibayak
A while ago me and Jules went for a walk up a volcano, we met two young ladies from England who were also going up, so we formed a group.
The volcano was in the town of Berastagi in the north of Sumatra. Totally devoid of the usual tourist trappings of other towns it felt almost like we shouldn’t be there. The main reason tourists come to this town is to see either or both of the two volcanos, Gunung Sibayak and Gunung Sinabung. We decided to walk up Gunung Sibayak, since it was the easiest option of the two, and no less amazing for it.
On the way to the path to the top of the volcano we came across this eagle, it seemed to be someones pet.
The walk to the top of the volcano wasn’t too exciting to start off with, and happy to do so, we took a taxi to the where the road started to an end. Most of the road that we opted to taxi along was aligned on both sides by high bushes, blocking the view completely. When we got out of the taxi we started the walking, quite steep and deteriorating tarmac to start with, we were all a little disapointed with the way it all looked, a distinct lack of volcano like features. Eventually we came to the end of the road and the way continued via a path into the wilderness. Before too long volcanic features started to present themselves, invisible features in the form of sulpherous smells and visible features on the ground, strange looking colours in the dirt, indicating interesting minerals spewed out from deep in the earth at some point in the past. All of a sudden the landscape looked pleasingly volcanic, we could see steam vents in the distance and everything was nice and rubbly and martian. Seeing it all made me think of what past civilisations must have thought of the area, we know what it is and how it came to be, but imagine if you didn’t know the reason for this definatly different landscape, and the smell, and of course the heat and steam spewing out of the earth, images of biblical hell come to mind.
Sulpher coated rocks, there were a few insects in amongst the yellow rocks that had obviously flown too close.
I walked a little higher up and found a pool of rapidly boiling mud.
More mud and a small steam vent.
We were told back in town that we could walk up one side and then walk down on the other side, so after admiring all the volcanic features we trecked on, around a corner and to what looked like a path down, so we started to walk along it.
The landscape on the top of the volcano.
Some sections of the path down the volcano
road down the volcano
The path took many strange turns, often just spreading out so the only option was just to head across the rubble in a downwards direction, and then onto narrow low foliage tunnels with many man made steps through a thickening forest. It just kept on going down and down and down, it was very tiring, as the steps were often just the lips of the steps, the rest of the step being a puddle or a pool of mud, obviously weather had washed away most of what was the step. So walking on these became an act of almost circus worthy antics, hopping and ballancing, hopping and ballancing.
Thats me on the top! Giving it a thumbs up. And on the way down I came across a giant milipede strolling across the path, I even gently picked it up, since I knew it wasn’t dangerous and the only threat from it came from a smelly defensive spray it would emit if threatened, so I let it walk onto my hand and then I was holding it. Its many legs felt great as they walked in waves.
Walking down down down down down, a few stumbles from the girls behind me, one of the English girls gave up walking in flip flops and opted for bare feet (not the best descision in the first place to go for a hike in flip flops, but she made it!). Eventually we came out onto a road, we turned around and saw how far we had walked. Around this area the hot springs from the volcano were being put to a few uses, one was creating electricity, the other was soothing bodies with hot smelly baths.
So thats where we walked to and from, the walk down took much longer, since it was a more windy road, and the way up was with a road and taxi for half of it. It took about an hour and a half to walk down, and maybe 1 hour to the top. The second picture is from the top down.
And thats my volcano story 
I was a little disapointed that there wasnt any lava, but boiling mud and sulpherous vents was pretty good.