The sound of croaking frogs and buzzing insects surrounded me as I trudged through the rocky trail. It was still dark before the dawn and the land was still asleep, but for the restless souls like me trapped in this time between sleep and awakening. I could see in the distance, the moving pin-points of torches forming a broken line leading up towards the top of the mountain’s silhouette that loomed ahead of me. The humidity was unforgiving and I was uncomfortably drenched with sweat. What had started out as breathless excitement had soon degenerated into breathless exhaustion and I thought to myself “What was I thinking of? I could have been sleeping on the comfortable 4 poster bed of my hotel room and enjoying the complimentary buffet breakfast.” Continue reading “Climbing an Active Volcano in Bali”