LAKE TOBA
After spending a few days in Bukit Lawang exploring the beautiful jungles in search of Orangutans we left on a 7 hour mini van ride to Lake Toba.
Lake Toba is the result of the world's largest known explosive super volcano. Some 75,000 years ago the history of the world was changed when the Toba supervolcano erupted, killing most of the humans at the time and causing a population bottleneck which affected the genetic makeup of today's human population.
Lake Toba is the world's largest volcanic lake at stretches some 62 miles long and 19 miles wide with a depth of over 500 meters. A large eruption will eventually happen again and scientists have shown how magma is building under the caldera. Although this is not set to happen for many thousands of years. There are also views of other volcanoes from Toba, and when viewed on a map there is a clear line of volcanoes across the entire island as part of the ring of fire.
We arrived at the port on the east side of Toba. We caught the ferry from Parapat to Tuk Tuk, a small peninsula on the island of Samosir on Lake Toba. We booked a place to stay on the boat ride calle Lake Johns, it was right on the waterfront and John was the coolest guy.
The first day we hired mountain bikes and cycled Tuk Tuk, it was a great way to get a feel of the place, we also came across very young puppies and spent several hours playing with them.
We spent our time on the island hiking to waterfalls and we even drove 2 hours to the other side of the island, crossed the bridge to the mainland to visit some old hot springs that used to be part of the hippy trail.
Tuk Tuk also used to be part of the hippy trail and as such has signs everywhere for magic mushrooms. They have been cooked and mixed into everything on the island and a lot of people visit for some chill time.
There are plenty of places to stay on the lake from budget options to more luxury options. The island is popular with locals coming on holiday for water-sports and our visit coincided with a local holiday, they stayed up for a solid 48 hours partying at night and we didn't get much sleep. Lake John looked pretty fed up with them as well!
Lake Toba was a magical place and also very exciting because of its history. The size can be deceiving and we definitely would love to come back and spend more time exploring.
