Dating on the weekend for Tito & I is basically another movie date / coffee session, not saying that we’re not enjoying these kind of date but after 11 months of these routine, we feel like we need to do something new & different, hence we try to combine some ideas and create a list of fun activities that we can do together, as we both living alone in Jakarta and often free during the weekend.
While thinking & browsing for some ideas with 2 important filters: FUN & SAFE (considering current Covid-19 condition), we were stumbled upon a travel vlog from YouTube channel: Travel Secrets in the episode of: Trekking dan Main Air di Curug Bogor – and it got me thinking:
Hmm, I personally never do a serious trekking, but it doesn’t seems so hard; Tito is a mountain climber so he must be happy to go trekking, Curug Bogor is just 2 hours away from Jakarta with car — I think, this trekking idea must be fun and doable activity for us both ?! (âďžăŽďž)â
Just like offering candies to a kiddo, it’s a yes YES from this nature-lover-guy to go trekking! with all information gathered from Google, we were finally planning this mini-adventure to Curug Kembar, Bogor together! â°(*°â˝Â°*)âŻ
And through this blog post, I would like to share with you any details about this trip & recommendation based on our experience, I hope you find it helpful! (â´âĄ`â)
#Planning The Trip:
Please bear in mind that everyone has their own way when it comes to plan a trip. Some people prefer to have a)Â spontaneous trip & go-with-the-flow activities, well others b) choose to dedicate some moments to do research, creating an itinerary in excel and go deep on the details, well I tend to be 75% of type #b and 25% of type #a, based on my mood & excitement toward the trip ^_^
Oh but luckily, Tito is very structured & neat, so we’re aligned to go with TYPE B for our very first mini-trip together; without further ado, let’s get started!
Working on the Itinerary
I bet you’re all familiar with Google Sheet? – because this spreadsheet program will be the main tools for the planning section. We found it very simple and helpful to split each of every task.
- First thing first, we created 4 different sheets as per below, if you have your own car or planning to go with a motorbike, then you only need 3 sheets
2. Itinerary:
We try to make the itinerary as detail as possible but this one above has been adjusted to what really happened on the trip (which isn’t so different from the 1st plan), I just adjusted the timing and delete 1 other waterfall (Curug) that we decided not to visit, why? will get to that in the next session (â’⥒â) + I will breakdown in detail all the budget, what I putted here is just a brief budget on-the-go
3. Logistic
I don’t know why Tito named it after Logistic? it sounds weird to me but anyway I hope you got the point on what we’re going to show in the part of things-to-bring (well now I agree with his idea of calling it logistic (â˘_â˘) ) , first we divided it into 2 categories: personal & group then put a tick box on every item to help us split the tasks & re-check while putting it on our bag.Â
4. Car Rent
If you own a car or planning to go with a motorbike, you can skip this section and go to the next point. In this section, I want to share our 1st experience renting a car from Traveloka Car Rent which surprisingly very convenient and has better rate compare to other car rent (in our case, we only compare it to ShareCar.co.id). Traveloka has many options for the car, but we chose the basic New Avanza from its partner: Moovby.
Moovby has a very good rating, they are refundable and what makes them convenient is that they can send and pick up the car to and from your place (I’m not sure if all the car rent do that since it’s my first time renting a car also (âŻâ˝â° ) )Â
Â
The budget we spent to rent the car is 456,000 Rupiah. For us, it’s reasonable & worth it (â´âĄ`â) below is the detail:
5. Overall Budget
Move to the last part on planning session: budgeting. In this part, I will recap all the things from the logistic part (mostly food/snacks), the highway fee, fuel, and car rent as per below:
I let you decide your thoughts whether it’s too much or too cheap, but for us it’s really worth the experiences ^_^
Fyuuuh, all this long story and we just finished the plan part?! ŕźź 㤠â_â ŕź˝ă¤Â
Â
Ok, let’s just start the #OnTrekking part!
So, basically the Curug Kembar that we’re going to visit is one from a cluster of 3 Curug located in Kampung Cibereum Cibadak, Sukamakmur Bogor, the other 2 curug (waterfalls) are: Curug Hordeng & Curug Ciburial. All these 3 are not so far from each other but it seems that Curug Ciburial is a bit further from the rests no? (hahaha say me & my lazy ass) (âŻâ˝â° )
Â
From the welcome gate to the 1st Curug which is Curug Hordeng, it took us Âą 1 hour of trekking. I believe Tito can go faster alone, but he is with me and I’m very cautious with my steps, sooo? ^_^
The view on the way to Curug Hordeng was AMAZING! It was wide open so we can see the mountain range clearly. On top of that, we also pass through a big football field, flower meadow, and a magnificent assembly of tree ferns! (Bahasa Indonesia: gugusan pohon pakis)
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
The pathway to reach Curug Hordeng is not so hard for a complete beginner like me but of course I need to always be extra careful because some of the uphill path is rocky and some are very slippery. I was using a basic running shoes so it gave me extra nervous when I faced a slippery up/down hill, if you have a trekking shoes or if money is not an issue to your life and you can easily buy a pair of new shoes, you better use a specific trekking shoes, ok? (âďžăŽďž)â
When I feel like I can’t be more breathless in my life after 1 hour of trekking, I finally arrived in Curug Hordeng! Yeay!! Not lying, all those hard work to reach this curug is finally paid off! I was so happy & excited! When we arrived, there are already some group of people playing in the waterfall and we were hesitate to join them – then Tito was thinking to keep on trekking to 2nd curug which is Curug Kembar because the information board that was hanging there said Curug Kembar is only 0.7km far from Curug Hodeng.
We didn’t take any picturesin Curug Hordeng but I found one picture in Google showing that this Curug Hordeng is one beautiful waterfall that is worth a visit!
After Âą 15 minutes of trekking from Curug Hordeng, we finally arrived in Curug Kembar. I found the pathway to Curug Kembar from Curug Hordeng is a bit more challenging compare to the pathway from the gate to Curug Hordeng because it was smaller, more up & down hill, and very rocky.
Nothing worth having comes easy, huh? It felt so hard until I finally reached Curug Kembar and can’t stop wondering its beauty! I personally think that Curug Kembar is way bigger & prettier than Curug Hordeng! and what excites me the most is that there are many small curug pools where we can dip in & swim privately and that was what Tito & I were looking for! A curug pool for ourselves (´â˝`ĘâĄĆŞ)
Here we want to share some pictures we took in one of curug pool in Curug Kembar:
We were lost in time because we had so much fun playing in the pool together, chit-chating about the whole trekking experiences, while also eating the meals we brought from home. We ENJOY this moment a lot and decided not to continue trekking to Curug Ciburial because we already found what we’re looking for ^_^
The clock was showing 12 pm and the sun was above us, we finally decided to stop playing in the pool and trekking back to the car because we’re starving and really need a “real food”, not just an easy meal. On our way back, we made a stop on an Instant Noodle kiosk (Bahasa Indonesia: kios Indomie) and decided to have a bowl of instant noodle there + a view of the green forest from above. For your information, there are many Instant Noodle Kiosk here in the Curug area, so you don’t need to over-pack yourself with food or drinks and don’t worry, they’re not overcharge it just because you’re up in the hill ^_^
Finally, we were back in the car & start our way back to Jakarta with a tired body but recharged and happy soul! It was one great day for us because we finally did something good, new & different together.Â
Wrapping up this entire mini-journey, I’d like to recap by sharing tips & tricks to visit Curug Kembar:
- Better go as early as possible — the small & rocky road to get there, overflowing merchants on traditional market, and slow-moving freight truck will cost you quite some time from what Google Maps told you, if you can start your trip at 5 or 5:30, it would be great!
- Don’t forget to top-up your E-Money for the highway đ (we forgot)
- Prepare sufficient cash in small bills (5,000, 10,000, 20,000 IDR) because you might be stopped by the locals to pay some “obligatory fee” which we are not sure what does it for but okay o(=â˘ă§â˘=)m
- Don’t forget to bring spare clothes
- It’s OK to not bring your own meal, there are plenty of Indomie-kiosk uphill
- If you need to rent a car, Moovby is one recommended car rental you can try â(ďžăŽďžâ)
- Unpopular notes: Girls, bring your cap & wear that sunblock because the sun & heat there was not easy \( ̄︜ ̄*\))
- Take rests if you feel like you need to. Know your limit before you try to push it ^_^
And if you’re reading my words all the way here, I’d like to say Thank You so muchâ¤! I always love to write but sometime feel discouraged to post it but yeah I would like to be moreÂ
If you’re one of my friend and have some more question, don’t hesitate to ask me whatever the question is, I will answer as much as I can, and if you don’t know me but have questions too, you can drop me an email here: septianiwina@gmail đ
Stay tuned for more blog posts from me! I hope you find it informative & helpful! ^_^