[Mapala Blog] The first journey with the Mapala team and the new idea – MAPALANET
In April 2015, my good friend went to Indonesia, so we needed to organize "something" special! I contacted Olen and asked for help. We prepared a 1 month route. The first week is a journey across Java Island. We planned to descend to several caves, fly on a paraglider, go to waterfalls, beaches and ride bikes off-road (it was the first time we ever drove them, by the way :)). Everyday was something new, something dangerous and safe at the same time, because everything was with Mapala.
Java Island
We descended into the cave where there was so much water that sometimes we had to swim. We did it at night, as soon as we got to the place: it doesn't matter if it's day or night, it's always dark in a cave. At the second cave, we had to go through many vertical descents up to 30 meters deep. Sometimes it was even hard to push through different "parts" of our bodies. By the way, caves in Indonesia are many kilometers long with lots of splitting roads inside! If it rains heavily, you can be late to come out, because the water flows down very fast... In case of emergency, there were our guys on the surface. They were cooking lunch, and if something happened, they would go down to warn us.
Zombie attack? Or is it just an impression of the cave exploration? Motocross gave us strong emotions. It was not that we decided just to ride, we went deep in the mud! Having no driving experience we were exhausted but managed to get out! Jungles, rise fields, slopes, lifts, small "who-will-be-the-first" or "who will fall fewer times" competitions – there was everything :))
Paraglider... Personally, I was not that impressed, it is more fun to jump with a parachute. When the instructor started to twist the paraglider on the wind - it was cool, but still, it's not a free fall. You feel that everything is controlled by an experienced guy and "relax" a bit.
Mountains are on your left, ocean is on your right.
The first week had finished, and we needed to go back to the city, leave the country for a couple of days and go back to prolong my visa. We flew to Malaysia, having our car loaded on a ferry with Olen and his assistant Agun before the flight. We spent 3 days in Malaysia, while our Indonesian friends were in the ocean).
Flores Island.
After we landed at the airport of Maumere, Olen met us, we jumped in the car and... got it started. Those adventures were more inspiring rather than extreme, because we were on the "traditional" island of Indonesia, Flores. We were sleeping under the sky on the beach, climbed up to the godforsaken villages, visited people, swam to Komodo Island to see the local "dragons", hang out on the party island (Gili T – it is like Ibiza), dove to the ocean bottom and just enjoyed the jungles. In Olen's family house we met the King of the village and participated in the ritual for "honored" guests (that is how they treat foreigners in Indonesia in places where the traditions are still alive).
2 weeks flashed! We were approaching Bali Island. We were to meet a "civilization", parties, surfing there... It is a standard program of hotel tourists, I will save the time and skip this.)) By the end of the trip, I got an idea - why is Mapala team, so well organized pros, not united in a single system? All we had during the trip was made by their hands or obtained due to their connections. They can do everything when it comes to tourism, but it's almost impossible to find information about them... Why?!
Agun, a Mapala brother, and a "Silat" martial art master at the same time.
From that moment, I and Olen started the MapalaNet project, a global community of travelers. Initially, it was just a simple business project aimed at uniting Mapala members into a p2p tourism system. After we came up with the idea of growth...
P.S.: I anticipate that someone will ask how much such a trip cost us... Together, two of us spent about 50 mln rupees, it's about $3500 + the car rent $200. But this trip is impossible to forget.) Here you can see the trip video report: