Tomohon and the Lakes

Before heading to the southern region of Sulawesi we decided to take a short pit stop in Tomohon which is about 45 minutes from Manado in the mountains. Our taxi driver took us to Happy Flower Homestay which was... well a bed and it sort of did have hot water. We wanted to hike one of the volcanoes near there called Gunung Lokon. The owner of the homestay said he would be happy to guide us up if we wished to go.

Danau Linaw

Security at pertamina site

 We made arrangements to hike Gunung Lokon early the next morning and then went to Danau Linow which is a multi-coloured lake due to all the geothermal activity around the area. We wanted to walk from this lake to Danau Tondano which is about 3 hours. When we got to Danau Linow it was raining pretty hard so we ate some pisang goreng and had a cup of tea to wait the weather out. At about 3pm we started our walk through some beautiful little villages and a geothermal plant owned by pertamina but guarded by cow... hahahaha.

We ended up at Tondano just before sunset which made for a beautiful stroll along the road by the lake. After it got dark we still hadn't passed any places to eat so we just kept walking. Eventually we found one that was already closed but they lead us to another one about 15 minutes further up the road.

We at at _OUR restaurant right on the shore of the lake. They served up Ikan Mas kuah asem and tumis pakis. It was reallly really delicious and we were really hungry. From here we got an ojek back to our homestay which actually ended up being about a 30minute drive by motorbike... a lot further than we anticipated.

By the time that we arrived back to our homestay it was already late and we started having second thoughts about the hike up Gunung Lokon. Our guide had metioned that it was ok to hike even though the volcanology center had warned against it. At first I was willing to take the risk but then I started think that the sulfur is the same as H2S... too much health and safety lessons from Schlumberger started to enter my head. We called a local friend and he said better to just hike a smaller mountain Gunung Merawe and then later you can eat lunch at my families house. With the offer of a fresh homecooked minhasan meal we softely let down our guide.

We hiked the short way up the next morning which was beautiful. From the top we could see Gunung Lokon steaming in the distance. We then got picked up by our friends Auntie and taken for lunch. We had Bebek Rica-Rica, Cakalang fufu, bubur manado, cakalang bakar, and sate (like kerang but from a fresh water lake not the sea). It was awesome. It was now time to say good bye to northern Sulawesi and get ready for our cultural tour of the south!!