Cub Scout Hike

We have never been a scouting family but heard that we should join here because the outings were pretty cool.  Boy Scouts looked a little too time consuming for Ben, but Cub Scouts was the perfect answer for Alex.  All of the activities are for the entire family so we all get to learn and explore together.  Our first hike was in a national park outside of Bogor, about 1 1/2 hours south of Jakarta.  It was pretty exciting to drive up and see the volcanic peaks.

 

Lots of people attended, so it was a little slow getting started.  I think we had over 100 on the hike.

First we passed through some rice paddies at the base of the mountain.

Selemat Datang = Welcome
Heading into the national park!

After passing through some pine forest, we came to a clearing and got a nice view of one of the volcanic peaks.

We hiked up into a ravine and enjoyed Hidden Falls.

My friend Pam got this great shot of all of us:

Alex was pretty interested in the rocks because several appeared to be old volcanic rocks.

We passed another beautiful fall on our way down.

We had a picnic lunch and played where the ravine opened up and the water created big pools.  The monkeys also noticed that it was a nice picnic spot and came to join us.

At first they were cute, but several had no fear of us and were rather aggressively looking for our food.  Good thing we got our rabies vaccinations!

The ones in the distance were lots of fun to watch.

The kids' favorite place was a natural slide in the rock into a deep, frigid pool.  The closest I got was wading in to cool off my feet.  It was a hot and humid day and we were sweating buckets.

We finally had to pack up and get back on the buses to head home to Jakarta.  It took us a little under 2 hours to get there...going home was nearly 4!  Jakarta traffic is really no joke.  And it's not just Jakarta.  I took this in Bogor because it was so much slower passing through on the way back.  You know you're going slow when you're getting passed by motorbikes carrying mattresses.

Our first adventure out into Indonesia was successful (we all fell asleep on the way home!) and memorable.  We cannot wait to do more exploring here.