West of Sumatra: volcano Kerinci (3805 m) and Bukkitingi

A good breakfast: Lontong

On Sunday we go for a walk and she invites me to “Lontong” for breakfast, a compact rice with curry and some pink chips. There are motorbikes and cars everywhere with men who have dogs and Rina tells me that many men go out to hunt wild boar, and if they catch them, they are taken in the middle of a football field where they release the dogs and they bet to see which dog will kill and devour the pig faster.

She does not like this activity at all, because of the cruelty involved, and her husband less, because the dog is impure according to the Muslims and after touching one you have to wash your hands with Earth 7 times before entering the mosque!

I say goodbye to the family very pleased of having stayed with them and learned so many things during these days. I am sure that if I stay a few more days they turn me Muslim and find me a wife!

With Rina and her family

Climbing the volcano Kerinci (3805 meters)

Arriving at the Kerinci area (300 km to the south) is an adventure. I ask several people at what time the bus passes to go there (“Berapa Jam bis ke Kersik Tua”) and I receive 4 different answers: “At 2, at 4, at 5, at 7…”. A day and a half later I arrive at Kersik Tua, a noisy village with  tuned motorcycles that would not pass the town noise control, surrounded by tea and vegetable fields and the volcano Kerinci, of 3805 meters, covered by a cloud. Women and men with a circular hat and well covered with plastics, to avoid scratching the skin or burn, gather the tender leafs of tea plants and place them on a bag hanging on their back.

Women collecting tea in Kersik Tua

Here I take the opportunity to meet other travelers and go for a 2-hour excursion through the jungle to see the Raflesia, the largest flower in the world, which grows 15 km northwest in Palupuh. The flower, which takes 1 year and a half to grow and opens for 7 days, smells like wild boar. It can reach up to a metre and a half, although the one we saw was smaller.

Rafflesia arnoldii

Returning to the village we were invited to a house where we drank a Luwak coffee, for $2, 4 times the price of a normal coffee. The Luwak coffee is made from feces of ‘civet cat’. From the different existing cat species, they choose those of a species that feeds basically with wild coffee and other plants, and that is strictly vegetarian. This means that their feces do not stinks. And it is precisely the feces of these cats the main ingredient of coffee Luwak. 6 days drying in the sun and roasted for 1 hour with cinnamon tree wood and let cool it two hours and, voila! You can already enjoy a delicious coffee Luwak, that is great for the skin and for the stomach!