MB
Or they often called it ‘‘S’’ on the official maps, but everyone who knew the soul of this borderland called it MB. Though for the sake of privacy here, I will simply call it MB. I loved that local name better. It carried the weight of unpolished earth, a name that tasted like the rough-hewn hills of a temporary home.
For years back in 2024, that distant ridge at the edge of the horizon was just a quiet longing. One thing after another stood in the way. I never made it. But God’s timing has a way of waiting until the air clears and the right companions appear.
Recently, the window opened. I finally climbed MB with friends who knew the terrain like their own palms.
It was a grueling two-hour ascent and descent. For someone whose daily life isn’t built for hardcore endurance, it tested every limit. At one point, feeling the world spin slightly as fatigue blurred my vision, I glanced down at my watch, my heart rate had hit 178 bpm. The heart sang to the brain “mabur duwur meeelayang layang…”. Well. I remembered my personal trainer’s notes warning me that my absolute maximum sat around 180 or 185. I was dancing right on the edge.
Yet, the journey was profoundly alive. It began deceptively flat, teasing us with gentle green corridors before transforming into an unforgiving, upward vertical sprawl. Then came the crux, an almost vertical rock face standing high and sharp at what felt like a sheer 90° angle, stretching for nearly three meters. Every single foothold demanded absolute reverence. One misplaced step, one careless slip, and gravity would have claimed you.
The day after, I stand in front of the bathroom mirror with my brown greyish messy-bun-hair, looked at my reflection. Then I looked down.
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My body was a map of the mountain’s friction. Ten blue-purple bruises bloomed across my right leg, one on my left, and another one stamped onto my right hand, in total twelve silent souvenirs of where I had collided with ancient stone HAHAHAH ((T_T)).
Geologically speaking, places like this whisper secrets of deep time. Long before our footprints marked these slopes, this entire region slept beneath an ancient ocean, birthed by the slow, violent dance of tectonic plates. Even now amidst the dirt and roots you can still stumble upon fossilized sea snails tiny spirals of prehistoric life frozen in stone.
It reminded me so much of Gunung Kidul back on Jogja, another ancient seabed lifted into the sky. Yet, standing there touching the rock, I noticed a curious contrast. Both are born from the deep sea, but their textures tell different stories.
In Gunung Kidul, the ancient coral skeletons bare their souls, you can trace the intricate porous lattices of fossilized reefs with your bare fingers. MB, however, is a different breed of stone. It is dense and unyielding hard as iron, featuring holes and crevices, yes, but lacking that sprawling, porous lightness of Gunung Kidul. It is solid earth that bites back, as my bruised limbs could bitterly attest.
It also brought to mind those mystical formations up in Mangkalihat, Sangkulirang. Those majestic limestone towers rising sharply through morning mists, where ancient human hands left crimson red stencils on cave walls centuries ago (I love this detail sm). There is something profoundly sacred about landscapes like these, where geology and human history overlap in the fog.
As we finally broke through the tree line and stood at the summit, the exhaustion melted into quiet awe. I whispered.. alhamdulillah.
Some journeys are meant to wait. What was missed in the past finds its way back to us, arriving precisely when our hearts ((and legs)) are ready to carry the weight testifying that nothing is ever truly lost, except by divine permission.
— November 10th ‘26.
