During the month of Ramadan, a friend and I decided to hike through parts of Tana Toraja, a popular wilderness destination in Sulaweisi, one of the large islands of Indonesia.
Basic Logistics: From Jakarta to Rantepao:
I booked plane tickets from Jakarta to Makassar, and spent a day in Makassar visiting Fort Rotterdam and the nearby beach (not a swimming beach!).
From Makassar, we took the overnight Binta Prima, the “high-end” bus
(“high end” means fantabulous designs??)
The roads are quite bumpy, so don’t expect to get any sleep! Here’s out bus:
Make sure to pack:
- Sunscreen
- Bug spray
- Good hiking clothes
- Indonesian Rupiah
- Hats & Sunglasses
- A high quality travel map of the area (Periplus guide-purchase in Jakarta or Makassar)
- A phone with GPS and a pre-loaded google map of the area
- Basic Indonesian dictionary
Hiking Trip (Rantepao-Batutomonga-Pangala-Sapan):
From Rantepao through Batutomonga: The bus drops you off early in the morning in Rantepao, and I immediately begin hiking northwards on an ambitous trek. We had decided earlier to go without a guide, which is not the norm in Indonesian tourism. We quicky hiked northwards towards batutomonga, stopping for lunch at a touristy cafe on the slopes. The scenary was drop-dead gorgeous. We then walked west along the main road into the mountains into Pangala. This was the longest and most difficult walk.
At night, we stayed at Losmen Sando, in Pangala.
The next day, we headed north through an amazingly beautiful mountainscrape. We passed by many locals and a large procession headed up the mountain for some kind of ceremony. Sapan is a tiny town and we payed the family of the local shopkeeper to stay in their traditional house.
The next day, we hiked back to Rantepao. If I had more time I would have liked to hike East to Sa’dan.
South of Rantepao
The more “touristy” destinations are South of Rantepao