Volcano, clouds and a strong old lady

A few weeks ago a volcano on Sumatra erupted and 11 people died. They made a danger zone of 10 km, where you are prohibited to enter. A lot of people told us that it is save to go to one of the villages near the danger zone. After hearing from several people that it will be fine to stay in the neighborhood, we went to Berestagi. The first night our host took as near the danger zone, so we could see the volcano from a distance. Unfortunately it was cloudy and we couldn't see that much. Once in a while, after a growling sound, we could see some red lava glowing up through the fog. The sound was impressive though.

The next morning Caro woke up with bad back and stomach pain. She crawled from the bedroom to the dining room of our host to get some tea and painkillers. As soon as they saw that she was not feeling so well, our hosts tried everything to help her. She got some weird and strong smelling tea but they swore that this is the best thing you can get, it cures everything. Our host let an old lady come to give Caro a healing massage. As the lady arrived they put a blanked on the kitchen floor, heated up the oven and commanded Caro to get undressed and lay down. All really weird but we thought why not.. if it helps. They heated some banana leafs on the stove and put some oil on them. As the leafs were hot enough they put them on Caros back. After the hot banana leaf treatment the granny started to massage. Caro was hoping for some relief, but it was not granted her. Without pity and really strong hands Caro got kneaded. Screaming, crying nothing helped, they were so unperturbed by Caros begging that our host did not even stop with cooking meals. They promised her countless times that all the knots have to be released and then she will fell like newborn. 1000 felt hours later the torture stopped and Caro could go back to her bed. Trying to sleep and forget.

The next few days were so cloudy we couldn't really check the highlights of the area. Berestagi, the city we stayed is not the most beautiful one but with only gray tones from the clouds it was just depressing. Time to move on!