Climb the most remote of the Seven Summits with Berg Adventures
Carstensz Pyramid Expedition Dispatches
March 4, 2014 – Enjoying Bintang Beers and Beach Chairs before Timika!
A message from Brent:
The team is altogether, doing quite well and ready for our 1:50 AM flight to Tamika tonight. This morning was spent on last minute organization and some quick shopping errands for various items that were left stateside in the last minute rush to pack for most of the members. Kuta is a bustling tourist town, so anything that you forgot while packing can be found in a few blocks radius from the hotel as long as it's not climbing specific. In fact, anything you don't want can be found a few blocks from the hotel as well. It appears to be the Bali version of Thamel in Kathmandu, but with not quite the character.
With not much really to do for the afternoon, it was off to Kuta beach for a few hours until Chet and Dick arrived from Australia. The beach is a few blocks away from the hotel and goes on for mile after mile of sand and sun and the ocean is the temperature of slightly cooling bath water. And while Kuta is the heart of commercial Bali and perhaps would not be the first choice for a secluded excursion, it's hard to argue with the fact that we’re in tropical Bali in the sun and have left the cold of a lingering North American winter a few days earlier. Beach chairs in the sand and rounds of Bintang beer made it hard to believe that in a day or so we would be suffering in the rain and heart and mud in the jungle on the way to Carstensz. None of us complained as we made it into the surf between more rounds of Bintang.
Chet and Dick arrived in the late afternoon and were just in time for the welcome to Bali/Carstensz dinner with team. Great Asian food in the hotel and a quick briefing for the next leg of the trip left us with a few hours to kill packing and checking load weights until we leave for the domestic terminal. One more flight and the work and fun begins in earnest.