Uargh…usually that’s too early. What you are willing to do for a sunrise

To be able to see the sunrise from the summit requires you to get up early. Very early. The alarm clock went off at 2:45am so we could start at 3am. Right on time we were sitting on the veranda, waiting for our guide Aldo. Then we waited. And waited. When he hadn’t shown up by 3:20am, Flo checked that we had the hiking track on our GPS and we started without a guide. Hato Builico is about 1933 meters above sea level while the top of Mt Tatamailau, the highest point in Timor-Leste, is at 2986m.

Hiking in the dark was quite the adventure. We were lucky in so far as the moon was full and shedding much light as well. But still, you don’t see much more than what your headlamp shows you. If you turn the lamp off though, you could see many stars and off course the full moon so we took the time to take two long exposure photos in the dark.

View up the road with long exposure of the night sky. You can see a couple of the stars

First, we followed the “road” through the village and up to the entrance of the hiking track. Road is in quotation marks as it was a mixture between broken up asphalt, rough dirt and gravel. At one point, while following the asphalt, the road just disappeared into a drop. We took a picture of it on the way back.

The entrance to the hiking track is marked by a gate. This gate is an entrance monument for the pilgrimage up the mountain with Francis of Assis on it. Right behind the gate, steps start to lead up the mountain for a while. After a long series of stairs, the path turns into a dirt track that steeply climbs the mountain. Then it turns into goat tracks which zigzag up the side. One of the tracks had been “barred” with a branch; we took the advice and continued straight on.

First glimpse of the red sun

At 5am, the birds all started to sing on cue as the first light appeared on the horizon. A red shimmer started to glow while we made our way towards the ridge. Our headlamps were unnecessary at this point. On the ridge, there was a nice little cleared area with a perfect view onto the horizon where we stopped and watched the red sun rise about all the smaller mountains in the vicinity. The views were grand; not only with the sun rising but also with the morning fog still hanging in the lower valleys. It looked as if we were the only people around for miles.

Sitting down to watch the sunset was lovely but also really, really cold. As soon as we stopped at such an exposed place, I began to shiver so Flo and I put on all the cloths we had brought including hats and fleece snoods. Looking like in the middle of winter we waited for this summer day to begin.

The statue isn’t actually that big

After the sun had come up, we hiked the last part up to the platform to a statue of the Virgin Mary. The statue looks big on photos but is only about 1,50m in real life. Unexpectedly, there was a local up there, recording our arrival for the ministry of tourism.

From the platform, you can see far into every direction. Ramelau is pretty much in the center so you could see the ocean on two sides of the island of Timor. Indonesia/West Timor was visible in the west while Maubisse, Baucau and even the bay of Dili could be made out in the distance.

Standing on the highest point, looking over all the land stretching out to your feet was quite awe inspiring.

On the way back down, Flo and I were reminiscing about all the places we had been to already and struck with the idea of what is yet to come.

We took a different goat track down and realized that there had been a landslip at one point so that from there onwards, it was unpassable. Luckily, there were still zigzag tracks down to the other path that we had come up on. These were steep and slippery though so I was especially careful.

Now we could see what we climbed up in the dark

Now, with the sun up, we could see the surroundings of what we climbed in the dark which made retracing our steps a bit more fun than it usually is.

At about 10am, we were back at our guest house. We packed quickly and then sat down on the veranda for a break. Aldo appeared shortly but seemed to be too embarrassed to talk to us. He confirmed that he had overslept and then was not to be seen again. I guess he still felt bad about the $15 he could have earned as a guide…

Flo said he felt well enough to drive so we hopped on the bike, said our good-byes and took the long 18km of cobblestone road back out. Winding along three valleys, we didn’t stop much today as we already had a 6 hours hike behind us.

In Maubisse, we had a lovely lunch in the same café as yesterday. Coffee was one of the main selling points for Flo and also, the food had been good and much. I took a coke instead of coffee to wake myself up again as I could read the signs: Flo was eager to get back to Dili today instead of staying in Maubisse for the night.

Another four hours of driving later, we finally made it through all the road words again and were back in Dili. Herman and the other volunteers we asked were busy so we had time to wash clothes before heading off to bed at 8pm. I for my part was knackered at that stage.