Senaru Trekking — Attraction in Lombok

It was not my idea to climb this monster of a mountain. This was a surprise wholly and covertly organised by my girlfriend, who had casually it would be a good idea to spend my birthday together at the summit of Mount Rinjani. (I recommend a bit more due diligence on the part of surprisers-to-be, as we considered ourselves moderately fit and conditioned for on-demand strenuous physical activities. So mistaken.)

Having set the context, I must go on to lavish my praise for the crew of Senaru Trekking. As mentioned, the planning and coordination between my girlfriend and Jul was seamless (at least to me, who was kept blissfully in the dark the whole time). It was only when we were pulling up to their lodge that I was alerted to my impending fate.

My greatest respect and commendation goes out to Dani and our crew of 2 porters (altogether, 3 people guiding, cooking, accommodating our every whim and Singaporean proclivity for freakish cleanliness and bottled drinking water). I genuinely have no idea how the porters do it (maybe some special Lombok-ian diet from young?), but watching them, basket-loads upon shoulder, skipping up and down the mountain in their nonchalant slipper-wearing, cigarette-smoking manner, made me question the validity of any claims I previously had with regards to fitness.

Anyway, Dani was an amazing guide. He encouraged us to go at our own pace, and never complained that we really took up his encouragement. (For context, the treacherous hike from camp to the summit was typically around 3.5 hours, but having Dani's blessing to go as per our comfort, we took around 7.5 hours.) In fact, Dani was continually motivating us, whilst ensuring we were in a condition suitable to trudge on. He never gave up on us, and was (sometimes literally) pulling us up the mountain.

I must also commend his experience and integrity as we were descending the mountain, as Dani had an uncanny knack of giving an accurate (albeit bleak) sensing of how long more till our next rest-stop/milestone. As an example, during an instance, he mentioned "maybe an hour more to the next stop" - exactly 15 Spotify songs later, we were sitting under a shed, resting.

Amazing.

All-in-all, it was mission very much accomplished. We were very much surprised on my birthday (I wasn't the only one surprised, my girlfriend was evidently surprised at the rigour and exertion required to fulfil her romantic whim). We have much to thank for this experience, especially Dani and our porter friends.

BRB, planning my girlfriend's upcoming birthday...

We booked a 3 Days / 2 Nights tour online from Gili Air. We asked that we could start the trip the same day and not just do the waterfalls on the first day. Jul was very helpful in making this happen. We took the first boat at 7:30am from Gili Air to Bangsal where our driver was already waiting for us. He then took us to the trekking office at Senaru where we met our guide Hendri and our two porters. After a quick breakfast we were ready to start trekking at around 10am. I would suggest this way to anyone going up Rinjani who doesn't have a lot of time during their vacation as you save one full day that would otherwise only be used to visit nearby waterfalls. We, however made it to the Crater rim before sunset (we did have a good place though). The 3 day trip in general is exhausting but very beautiful. Especially the second day is grueling as you have to wake up at 2am and make your way up a really tall vulcano. Fortunately we had booked with Senaru Trekking. Our porters and our guide did and amazing job taking care of us and Hendri even helped us with some of our weight during our trip. He really is a great guide to have! Speaking from experience we made in Guatemala when climbing Vulcano Acatenango, we highly recommend spending a little bit more money and going with Senaru Trekking. This vulcano experience was much more comfortable than when we took a cheap trekking company in Guatemala. We could also see here on Rinjani that some of the cheaper companies had very big groups (around 15 persons) with only 3-4 porters and one guide. Moreover, they had run out of water on the first day. We, on the other hand, had plenty of water and the food that our porters made for us every day was better than some of the Warung food we had this far. Plus, Senaru Trekking is still cheaper than the most expensive companies that we saw (like Green Rinjani) but still has the same quality. So, all in all it was an amazing experience. And chosing Senaru Trekking and Henri was the best choice we could make. We highly recommend using this company if you want to really...

These guys inspired confidence as soon as I made a query with them. The owner, Jul, emailed me back with the details and told me to take my time to decide - he didn't press me into booking immediately.

Contact was good in the lead up to the trip and Jul organised a pick up from the ferry port for us beforehand and a night in a lovely place. He was also able to sort the hire of walking poles, coats and long trousers for us the day before we set off.

We (2 adults, 2 teenagers) had a fantastic trip up, into and down Rinjani. It was tough! But totally worth it. We booked the 3D2N crater rim tour (no summit) and we were all glad that we skipped the summit bit - it meant we had more energy to get ourselves down the really precarious path into the crater fresh rather than already tired!

The guide and porters were honestly all supermen. How they trot up and down this mountain in flip flops, carrying tents and water and food is just awesome. They'd overtake us as we walked and then have the tents set up and a meal started by the time we puffed our way to the camp - we were treated so well.

Communication with our guide, Yuus, was mostly great and he was really kind - he showed us the best spot to jump in the hot springs and provided his sarong when changing in public proved a bit tricky! He also offered extra help when the path got slippy and shared his photos with us afterwards.

I think our trek up Rinjani was one of the very best bits of our month in Bali and Lombok and we're so very grateful we booked with these guys. Thanks...