It was the very end of a 9 months backpacking trip, and I skipped an important and beautiful scuba diving lesson to do it. I had to get up at 3 am for the drive to reach the base of the volcano. My best friend and only travel companion at the time was too lazy to join me, leaving me alone with a Balinese guide that knew not a word of English.

We reached the end of the road at around halfway up the volcano with ~1½ hours left of steep hiking on wet rugged rocks.

In silence, the monolingual guide and I accented, and the higher we went, the more I realised how grossly I had underestimated the freezing temperatures at the top of the volcano - Not wearing any jacket at all.

We finally reached the top 15 minutes before the sunrise, inside a dense and moist cloud, giving us with a visibility of 5-10 meters (16-32 feet) and our cloth and skin utterly soaked.