East Java Trip (part#3) – Rafting at Pekalen Atas River, Probolinggo

My first experience,,,it was incredibly awesome!

Rafting at Pekalen Atas River

Finally,,,my first rafting experience is coming! This is the reason why I was willing to join the 3-days-east java trip acouple weeks ago. I’ve been a couple time planning for such the trip but all is just not working. Haha. Well, after had a super short visit to Mount Bromo which is just 2.5 hours, we headed out to Probolinggo to a place called, Pekalen Atas River, a nice rafting track which managed by Songadventure! Pekalen River is located in Ranu Gedang Village, Tiris Subdistrict, Probolinggo. It’s not so hard to find, You just notice the billboard along the Jalan Raya Probolinggo. It’s quite a lot. So, it’s easy. Then, we continued passing through some residents which about 15 km to the base camp located. It takes about 1 hour driving. The road is not so smooth sadly,,,so, it was longer than it should, moreover our river is not really familiar with the area. We had to ask for the right direction again and again 🙄 .

at Base Camp before we go to start point

Well, rafting is new for me, so I felt a little bit nervous. The question comes up while I arrived at the base camp “Would it be dangerous?” May be. I heard sad news recently about the ITB student who was missing at Rafting activity in Garut (that’s my hometown anyway). So, that makes me worried. But, all is well. I tried to calm myself. We’ll see! Arrived at the base camp, I got welcome drink while the instructor come and ask me to eventually prepare for the trip as the weather is unpredictable. When it rain, the trip is always cancelled due to safety consideration. The river flow is possible to be uncontrollable. So, never visit the rafting service in the rainy season. Just useless. In the dry season is recommended.

Before headed out from the base camp, we the instructor eventually make us worn the Rafting outfit which consist of the hard hat, life jacket, and oar. They divided us into two groups with one guide each. We went up to the start point by a pickup car which means we need to stand up for a whole jouney. Not a big deal! It takes like 20 minutes. Oh,,,pretty far! Arrived at the top doesn’t mean we can eventually start the rafting. We went down to the river through steep footpath. It is so far away. Oh-my-god! That’s the challenge. Well,,,Let’s count it as the warming up before screaming along the trip. Such a good idea! Again, we took pictures just to entertain ourself due to the damn long journey. Hahaha. There’s another ‘nice’ thing to know,,,along the footstep to start point, there is a place in the small river where local people always bring their cows for bathing (including peeing and take a sh*t). That means the water in the river will be contaminated by the cow’s poop…sound nice, rite? Haha. Well,,Let’s enjoy it! Yuhuuu.

at Start Point. Let’s Rock!

Finally…after 20 minutes walking (approximately) we happily arrived at the start point. Fyuhhh. Sweating like crazy! While the rubber raft was being ballooned, the guides start their action with the opening speech. Then they continued to the introduction about the river, and the most important, some terms about the operation of the rafting itself. Here are these things:

Maju —> means advance rowing

Mundur —> means back rowing

Stop —> stop rowing

Kiri Mundur —> the left side people back rowing, the rest remain advance rowing

Kanan Mundur —the right side people back rowing, the rest remain advance rowing.

Pindah Kiri/Kanan/Belakang —means we have to move to left/right/back.

BOOM —(my favorite ) ––>mean all the personel sit on thefloor of rubber raft, raise the row vertically. And Just doing nothing.

The boom is instructed when there is a rapid cascade with tight channel. Be ready for screaming! That’s why I think it is fun. Yep, SCREAMING IS FUN! You know what? In the Pekalen Atas river there are 53 amazing cascade 😯  that need to be passed through. It was harder compare to pekalen bawah river, the guide said. That’s why, they said the difficulties level is II to III + (I don’t what that mean) 🙄 . The distance of rafting from start point to the finish is about 12 km. Commonly it take 3.5 hours to be accomplished. The source of the river is from The argopuro and lamongan mountain with approximately wide about 3 to 20 meter and depth 1 to 3 meter. The cascades has its own name : Batu Jenggot, Pandawa, Rajawali, Xtravaganza, The Fly Matador, Hiu, Cucak Rowo, Long Rapid, etc. Oww,,,I almost forgot what they have Inul cascade which make us to be just like inul “bergoyang” (spinning our waist) or your raft will not be moving. Haha. Sound nice, rite?

we passed through the waterfall like this

anyway, when the guide sometimes order you a ‘strange’ things then you must be aware of that. You are being cheated by him. hahaha. Once, we pass a smooth flow, nothing dangerous or something. then the guide said “Pindah Kiri” (move to the left). I was asking to myself ” was that necessary?” but I just follow his instruction. you know what. the rubber raft is now being unstable and eventually overturned. all of us was falling own to river. hahah. Damn you guide, you just cheated on us! looks, we are all wet due to unnecessary sinking. it’s gun though 🙂

play water after our raft is overturned. hahaha.

at one of beautiful waterfall at pekalen atas river

at Rest Area

Beside the nice cascade, we experienced of passing 7 waterfall 😯 (Seriously,,,we had passed 7 of that ) which one of them named “Angin-angin waterfall” with the millions of bats above and of course with the super duper horrible smell of it. Oh,,,It’s so natural. You know, the rapid flow of the waterfall just falls in your head…whoaaa. Then we stop for a while in a rest area in the middle of journey. We got some nice food like pisang goreng, tea, etc. a lil bit tired (due to screaming and laughing 😆 ) but incredible though. Near to the waterfall, theirs is a photographer who take picture for us, so you don’t need to worry about the documentation of its journey. But not for free of course. Seriously, had a rafting in pekalen atas was incredible. Yes we tired but all is pays off by the super nice view, amazing cascade, natural forest, rock , rapid flows. the guide is also nice and friendly.

We ended up at the finish point. We still questioning “Are we finish here? oh man,,,it’s just not enough. I want moreeee “. Then we went up the the pick-up car and brough us back to the base camp again. We clean up ourself and reay for lunch…

Just try it. It’s all worth it. 🙂

Well,,,ready for the next trip,,,the java culinary experience!