The Mahawu Volcano Trek and Sulawesi Prefab Houses
A long "you win some, you lose some" day scheduled with two "soft" adventures. First, to Mount Mahawu (Ma-ha-woo) for a one-hour trek to the crater's edge and then a Highland Tour. Freddy (Safari Tours & Travels) was ill today and A.J. is our new guide.
None of Sulawesi's volcanos are exactly dormant and Mahawu is no exception. Set at 4,344 feet, you can see Bunaken and Manada Tua Islands as well as the bay of Manado. The deep crater has a steaming lake and smelly sulfur pools and there are also two pyroclastic cones (volcanic rock fragments) in the northern flanks. Sounded great, right? But, it's pouring down buckets of rain today. A very heavy downpour. Nonetheless, we were game and headed through Tomohon to the base of Mount Mahawu.
Mount Mahawu was shrouded in a dense fog. Donned rain coats and stepped out of the car into the mud, wind and a freezing rain. Looked at each other and said ..."naw, let's take a pass on this..." It would just have been a cold, rainy one-hour uphill and then more cold, rainy one-hour downhill with no chance to see anything. A.J. wasn't exactly brokenhearted over this decision and instead we began the Highland Tour.
The entire area is extremely fertile thanks to all the volcanic activity and the people were out in the fields despite the rain. The farmers take turns in each others fields on a daily basis. One day your field, the next day mine. Everything is grown and picked by hand.
A visit to Woloan Village. The expert carpenters in this village make prefabricated houses. It's run as a cooperative and the entire village shares costs and profits. Sounds of hammering, sawing and pounding. Men were busy building everything from four-room houses...View image...that costs around $3,000 U.S., takes two weeks and four men to build, to a big house...View image..., $10,000 U.S. that would take four weeks to construct. Put the raincoats back on, opened the umbrella, mushed through the mud and went to look at houses.
Very interesting and nice constructed houses are then completely dismantled and shipped by container to the buyer's location. All you need is a little plumbing, electricity and you are set. These houses are very popular with the Thai, Japanese and other Asian people. Come, look, buy, have sent, and reconstruct on their homeland. Never did get an answer as to whether or not detailed..."insert part A into part B"...instructions come with or a blueprint. How do they know exactly how to reconstruct? Not exactly a set of Lego blocks...
The houses are built in typical Minahasan style, usually with two sets of stairs leading to the entrance. One is for ghosts (or spirits) and the other for them. The Minahasa people also prefer tin roofs rather than wood because of a correlation - wood to tree to ground to being buried in the ground. Reminds them of death.
Still raining, went to visit the Tomohon market....
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