more on puncak traverses

Writing a book on the ring route, as you suggest Alex, certainly sounds an exciting proposition. All these mental maps, data and photos need to find a good use. I hope we can soon post some info about the ring route in the sector D area around Cipanas.

Backtracking to Taman Safari, I certainly agree with Alex that the most "normal" route between Joglo and Taman Safari gate would be along the edge of the tea plantation i.e. after descending Gunung Joglo arrive at Point B on the C3 route and then turn right to follow the C3 route in reverse back to point A, then veering left to contour along the top of the tea plantation.

We instead turned left at point B, descending steeply toward the Taman Safari boundary fence. That path was indeed steeper and rougher than the C3 path, so not ideal near the start or finish of a long day, but we had an "ideological" desire to pass as close to Taman Safari as possible.

I didn't get a chance to explore further over Christmas as I was diving in Lombok.

ButI did have a chance to reread Alfred Russel Wallace's classic travelogue "The Malay Archipelago". I actually read that book shortly after I first arrived in Indonesia, and rereading it now that I have actually visited many of the places described I was even more impressed than the first time with Wallace's enterprise as a naturalist and with his many-faceted insights into Indonesia.

The most relevant section for this blog is in the chapter on Java, which Wallace visited in 1861. After a few weeks around Surabaya and Gunung Arjuna, Wallace caught the steamer to Batavia, before setting off to explore the Puncak and climb Gede and Pangrango. He felt disappointed by the Buitenzorg Botanical Gardens (he had by this time spent several years in Eastern Indonesia), he describes heading up toward the "Megamendung Mountain" with a hired horse and porters. But he soon decided to get off his horse and walk, so inspired was he by the "villages imbedded in fruit trees and pretty villas" as well as by the system of terrace-cultivation, which was "I should think, hardly equalled in the world."

After passing a fortnight staying in a roadkeeper's hut near the pass to collect wildlife specimens, he moved on to begin his ascent of the mountains, describing the landmarks familiar to those who climb Gede or Pangrango today: the "governor-general's country house at Tchipanas", the branch of the Botanic Gardens, the picturesque waterfall and the hot spring where the torrent "foams over its rugged bed, sending up clouds of steam". At that time, there was a "hut of open bamboos at a place called Kampung Badak" and Wallace stayed there to keep out of the "thick mist and drizzling rain" in between his ascents to the top of the two mountains.

For Wallace, who had spent most of his time in Indonesia's lowland forests, the thrill of the trip was in observing the change from tropical to temperate flora as he ascended the peak and in considering how European style plants, such as strawberries, raspberries and the "rare and beautiful Royal Cowslip" could be found on an isolated mountain peak south of the equator. He speculates that during a previous ice age temperate flora had spread right across the tropics, but then retreated up the mountain slopes and into the higher latitudes as temperatures rose.

Wallace refers us to "Mr. Darwin's Origin of Species, chapter 2" for a fuller explanation of this phenomenon.

And I refer readers to chapter VII of Wallace's "The Malay Archipelago", which is widely available in Jakarta book shops, probably somewhere near the WIPA Puncak Trek Guidebooks. It's even available in full text online, for those with glare-proof eyes. It really does offer a fascinating view into Indonesia as it used to be.