i also did this one with dan.you wont have to wait long for a guide to appear in molakoli.we had bad weather at the top but i can imagine there would be great views of adjacent inierie.we did a circut of the crater rim but be careful of the sulfur gases and big holes.
what i found a bit strange was that the night before in boawae the only shop that was open was a phone shop.it seems these days even in flores phones are more important than food.just as well i had some freeze dried icecream and salt and vinegar chips.a very nutritious meal.

Mulakoli is one of the most pleasant villages we’ve been to in Indonesia – really nice people and we had an almost identical experience. Hopefully more people will climb Ebulobo (a fantastic mountain) and contribute a little money to the local economy.

Climbed this one last week – a fabulous mountain, though we weren’t especially lucky with the weather! We flew to Ende – the approach includes a brilliant panorama of the Gunung Iya volcano on the peninsula south of the town. Getting to Boawae from the airport, we had the usual transport troubles you get everywhere in Flores – either pay Rp20,000 for a horrendously cramped, noisy and dangerous minibus or fork out an extortionate Rp600,000 which is the norm on Flores – probably due to some kind of cartel in operation. Luckily we found a guy who would drive us to Boawae for 300,000 – a reasonable price given the terrain and the distance.
By the time we got to Boawae it was eerily quiet. It was about 8pm but the only shop open was a mobile phone shop! Luckily they had some water but we had to go a night without a meal so do bring some food with you for this one!
The folllowing morning we had to wait around for over an hour for 2 ojeks because lots of the usual ojek guys were at some local party! Finally we got up to Mulakoli.
It seemd as though we had a guide before we could even get off the motorbikes! Fantastic! I thought the chap who marched out of his house was going to take us to someone who would be our guide, but no, he just continued marching all the way up the mountain in his flipflops and with no food or water whatsoever!
It took us about 3 hours to the top and then 15 minutes over to the true high point. A great jumble of boulders and gases. We actually did a circuit of the top – the last bit was a little difficult and needed great care both to avoid the worst of the gases and to not fall down massive holes in the ground!
We were back down in about 2 hours and the friendly village head arranged ojeks back to the main road for us before we could blink. We then set off on a long search for some breakfast!