For the Next Trip, Celebes Anyone ?

Office is in HPHT condition :)

But enough for today, let's prepare for the next journey. I knew holiday won't be easy for this year. We are in drilling mode, everything is uncertain, everything is postponed, the plan is no plan.

But I do have a commitment with my best friends and family to travel with them to celebrate my daughter's birthday. As usual, like we did since 2010. Cici is turning 4 this July and due to the Ramadhan we gonna postponed the trip to August. The next destination is Celebes.

Celebes or Sulawesi
http://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkas:Peta_Sulawesi.jpg

This island shape is unique and easily recognizable with four spindly arms spinning outward, the K island. What I remember from my Geotectonic lecture was about the subduction, collision, obduction and movement. The volcanoes, fault system, the island is complex.

J.A. Katili in his book said that the evolution of Sulawesi started in Miocene time or even earlier. Miocene in geologic time scale is about 23 - 5 m.ya (as a comparison, the age of Homo sapiens is 300.000 y.a). 800 km east of Kalimantan a NS trending east-facing island arc came into existence, originating from a spreading center located in the Pacific Ocean. Volcanism and plutonism accompanied this subduction process.

The next phase is a collision between Sulawesi and the Australian - New Guinea plate which occurred in early Pliocene time. The collision severely transformed Sulawesi into an island with its convex side turned towards the continent, at the same time causing obduction of ophiolite in the eastern arc of this island.

The movement of the Pacific plate continued and gradually pushed Sulawesi towards the Asian continent, resulting in the closing of the sea between Kalimantan and Sulawesi islands separated by small straits and deep seas resembling the complicated pattern of the Philippine Archipelago, in which the original double island-arc structure can no longer be recognized.

Geological Map of Sulawesi

That was amazing history, that's why we can have volcanic arc near Minahasa - Sangihe - and western part of the island. Ophiolite belt and its associated pelagic sediment covers the eastern part, continental fragment in Maluku Strait and the last but not the least is metamorphic belt in center of the island. That's the metamorphic rock that I seen 12 year ago at top of Mt. Mekongga, a mountain in South East Sulawesi. Wow, geology is fun.

Ok, finish for the geology, let's have offline discussion for this topic :)

So our next destination is Mt. Latimojong. This is a mountain range, located in South Sulawesi province, Enrekang district. Rante Mario is the highest peak of this mountain (3450 a.s.l) and also the highest peak in this island.

I did a small research and I found the most common route to this peak :

• Makassar - Baraka (Enrekang), +/- 6 hrs, land transport
• Baraka - Rante Lemo Village, +/- 2.5 hrs, land transport, 4WD car
• Rante Lemo - Karangan Village, hiking for about 2 hrs
• Pos 1 - Pos 7, hiking for about 1 day, stay over night at pos 7
• Pos 7 - Pos 8 - summit, hiking for about half day, back to pos 7, stay a night or hiking back to Karangan

Interesting, we need at least 5 days and also 1 additional day for contingency, hmm a long trip. But I can imagine the beauty of Celebes tropical forest, the moss, always perfect.

What next after Latimojong ? We have a lot of choices : Toraja, rafting at Sesean, Lore Lindu, visiting my best friend - Tyas in Palu or diving in Donggala. Any suggestion ?

This is the plan, I hope August is a free time for me and I can go to Sulawesi. My last trip to Sulawesi was at April 2009 and I was pregnant at the time. A short baby-moon trip with my husband. 

Wanna to join with us ? drop me a message..this is a non profit trip, we will share all the cost and have fun together. Do not to mention that Kaledo, Coto, Konro, Es Pisang Ijo, Kacang Mete are waiting for us :D

Ps : Already in the list are Cici, Helmy Noermawan, Akhyar Fikri, Cep Dahlan, Alfin Mahfuz, Yunita Dyah, Locker Alfonso, Naskar Hansam, and Andi Alamsyah