Porters of Rinjani

West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia, 2016

© Roni Bintang

For some people, hiking is a hobby. For others it becomes an annual tradition and for some it’s a challenge to get to the peak. But hiking requires preparation and assistance to do it safely.

The most famous helpers are the Sherpas of Mt Everest, the local guides who risk their lives to help climbers reach their goals. Indonesia’s Mount Rinjani may not be as tough as Everest, but without the local porters, thousands of visitors would not be able to do the climb every year.

Located on the island of Lombok, Rinjani is Indonesia’s second highest volcano. In 2015, 70,000 adventurers visited the mountain, including more than 27,000 foreign tourists from about 60 countries.  Most of them used porters to carry their tents, supplies and belongings up the 3,726m mountain.

Hikers begin the ascent from the villages of Sembalun Lawang and Senaru, where the porters come from. Some are farmers in the villages, but they are reliant on the income from work as porters. This area is well known for its production of vegetables, and also the export of its manual labor. Many men and women here have spent periods working in Malaysia and Saudi Arabia, as local jobs are hard to find.

For less than $US20 a day, porters carry up to 40kg of stuff – in hot sun, freezing wind or tropical rain. They carry the heavy loads in simple baskets on a bamboo pole across their shoulders, and prefer to wear flip-flop sandals on their feet.

The climb is dangerously slippery in the dry season and muddy in the wet season, but porters have special knowledge of the mountain. Hundreds of feet each day beat the paths into small rocks and gravel. At the top of the mountain, people are no longer walking but are scrambling to the top and sliding on the way down. Another danger is the cold. Even in a tropical country, at this altitude the temperature drops quickly once the sunsets. Experienced porters have secret paths and techniques to make the journey easier.

Most visitors to Mount Rinjani, particularly those from abroad, join groups led by guides. They don’t interact with the porters, who often don’t speak English and didn’t finish secondary school.

These visitors usually organize their climbing “program” via an agent, who provides the porters as part of a package including tent, sleeping bags, meals, tickets and a guide. The agents themselves take the most profits from these packages, followed by the English-speaking guides, while the porters get the least payment. Guides accompany the climbers to the peak while the porters do not – however, it is the porters’ work that makes the whole trip possible.

Porters walk ahead of the groups and are already preparing warm drinks and meals when climbers arrive at the posts for rest. They find the best locations to set up camp and put up the tents and build the campfire. Porters only eat their meal after their guests have finished eating, and they often sleep in more basic, exposed tents. Before the climbers wake up in the morning, the porters have breakfast ready. And getting down the mountain can be even trickier than coming up.

The work of a porter never stops. They rarely take a minute to look at the view around them. An important supply in their baskets is packets of cigarettes. A five-minute cigarette break in the shade is their only rest, or a game of cards in the tent when all the climbers are sleeping. They play for cigarettes.

A porter for 10 years, Samsu, makes five to seven trips up the mountain every month. Trips can be two days or up to seven days for hikers who want to reach the peak. But once, Samsu helped a Dutchman reach the peak and return to the bottom in just one day, an effort that earned him about $US30. “Afterwards he told me he was a marathon athlete,” Samsu said. “That’s why it was so easy for him.”

On another trip, a woman fell at Segera Anak, the lake in Rinjani’s crater, and hurt her feet and arms. Samsu carried the woman uphill for three hours to Plawangan camp, and then back down the mountain for 8km using only a sarong to strap her to his back. Samsu is about 60kg – the injured woman was about 80kg. He then went directly back up the mountain to collect the supplies left behind.

An experienced porter like Samsu can make a big difference to the enjoyment of a trip. His secret skills include special massages for cramps, and pre-cooked chicken and homemade chili sauce to add to meals of fried rice and noodles. Ideally, the trip should be three days and two nights, Samsu says. People underestimate how tough it can be. Climbers have died on the mountain, and others have been rescued with serious injuries. Porters can also get hurt. They have been known to bleed from the mouth and anus because of the strain of their heavy loads.

Januardi, 17, is the youngest in a family of nine children from Bawak Nao, near Sembalun Lawang. Eight of them are porters; the other is a woman. Jan, as he is known, is still in high school but works as a porter during holidays to pay for tuition. Jan was only 14 the first time he made the trip as a porter. “I cried going up, and cried going down,” he said. “At that time I thought, this work is so, so hard. But because I need money, I have to do it.” A week later, Jan braved the mountain again.

At least one time, climbers helped a porter. Two years ago, Senaru porter Sting suffered terrible leg cramps at post four, just before the hardest part of the climb to Plawangan. Three German men carried him and his supplies to the camp.

“I had only been a porter for one year,” Sting says. “When the cramps were gone I was able to continue working.”

When Jan comes down from the mountain, he likes to relax in his father’s fields, where they keep goats. On school holidays, he needs only a day’s rest before joining another trip and adding to his savings.  The teenager’s dream is to travel abroad. Samsu goes home to his rice fields and two young sons. He dreams that they will be well educated, and will not follow in his footsteps and become porters when they grow up.