Merapi-Parangtritis Cosmos Balance

We meet again, this time with the Javanese Jogjakarta cosmos. The whole Jogjakarta Sultanate legitimization were based on this two worlds, Merapi volcano and the southern coast of Java facing Indian Ocean. Nyi Roro Kidul the Queen of South Ocean were married to the whole heritage line of Jogjakarta Sultan, this gave Sultans the legitimization to rule over southern coastal people who worship the Queen.

While the mountain considered as grand dad by the sultanate, its big stature offered the sign of protection and literally protection from Dutch hegemony in the northern coast and eventually British invasion of Java during Napoleonic war at then. The volcano also bring lot of fertile soil to the valley of Jogjakarta and it brings life to this agricultural kingdom. The city of Jogjakarta were built as a straight axis line between the peak of Merapi and the southern beach of Parangtritis.

We planned this journey, to hug the merapi by riding around it and then go to the southern beach. The eastern route were taken, it was drizzle then rain then off then on and off the whole way. By noon we headed east to Klaten town then went north to Boyolali town in the central Java province. From Boyolali we headed west to the small town of Selo. Selo means gap, it is an ancient mountain pass road that pass between Merapi and Merbabu mountain. It's the gap between those two majestic mountain hence its named the gap (selo) town.

Up from the Boyolali to Selo, the scenery was beautiful but once again in this episode we were held by the rain, I promise we will redo the photographs when the weather went better. The rain stopped at the top which is Selo town then fogs appear on our way down, after the fogs came the rain again. It was a smooth hill ride until on our way down toward Blabak town which was famous for its paper factory. The road toward Blabak is also road for volcanic sand miner trucks, those trucks really destroy the asphalt, at some part the government tried to replace the asphalt with concrete, but the project wasn't finished yet. We were withheld behind line of trucks, rain pouring heavily. At 5pm we reached Blabak town it was quite dark like dusk due to the heavy cloud, but the rain has subsided.

Blabak was a T-junction town with Magelang-Jogjakarta road, wide 4 lanes road. From here we headed south until we met the Jogjakarta outer ring road then we turned right, ringed the city until we reached the intersection to Jogjakarta-Bantul road, took a right turn toward Gandjuran church. There I said my prayer then fell asleep, exhausted.
I woke up about 10 pm and continued our journey south, just a small hop toward Depok beach adjacent to Parangtritis beach, from Depok we strolled the beach road to Parangtritis. Strange-fully there's no wind that night as we expected. Took a smoke break here for a while then we headed back to the city.

Ride distant : 193.9km
Ride duration : 10 hours.



View merapi run in a larger map