Mr. Ramelau (Tatamailau, in Tetum, which translates to ‘grandfather of all’) is the highest peak (2986m) in both the country of East Timor, and the whole island of Timor. During the Portuguese colonial period, it was also considered the highest mountain of Portugal.
A few friends and I decided to brave the cold and darkness and hike up to the top to see the sunrise.


After a couple hours of hiking, it’s a bit erie to get to the top and see this statue of the Virgin Mary, standing out amongst the complete blackness.

Once on the top, we huddled up behind a wall to block the wind, shivering and waiting for the sun to come up…and it was well worth it.
Rather than watching the sun come up over the horizon, we watched it rise over the clouds, which we were above at this point.



And with the sun at our backs, we could see the shadow of the mountain to the west

On the walk down, we got to see everything that we missed on the way up

 


Looking back up at the peak, you can see the few white pixels which are the Virgin Mary statue

This is the village of Hato Bulico, where we stayed for a night before doing the hike