Timor Leste: Climbing Mount Ramelau for Sunrise
Mt Ramelau is the highest point in Timor Leste rising to 2,986 m (9,797 ft). Ascending this for sunrise was by far the main goal in Timor – after driving all day through mountainous bad roads you come to a guest house which is just a bed and a dining room and a squat toilet. A dinner of greens and vegetables, a short sleep, and a wake up call at 3am. You start at 6000 ft and it’s an almost 4000 ft climb in the darkness (it was luckily a full moon) on rather slippery clayish terrain. We got to the top an hour earlier before the sunrise, and at only +4 Celsius (~40 F), it was brutally cold to wait for an hour in the howling wind. (Interestingly, right before the sunrise, one could see the Moon, Saturn, and Mars aligned in a perfect line). The sunrise was slow and spectacular, the sun rising above the sea of clouds below, and slowly turning the landscape from blue to orange to yellow. It was a clear day at the top and both coasts of Timor Leste – north and south – were visible. Oh, and there is a Virgin Mary statue on top…
