Volcanic Dreamlands

For the first time in quite a while I woke up today feeling pretty darn good. Not achey. Not queasy. Not all dead-weighty. Hooray for good health! I guess I was a bit off with my malaria/dengue fever/cholera diagnosis, eh? Good thing I'm an English teacher and not a doctor! haha...

Anyway, today was a bit of an 'Amazing Race' day. A day where we had a final destination in mind, but knew that it would take a lot of various forms of transport to get there, and we seriously didn't think it would be possible to make it all the way in one day. We were trying to get to Mt. Bromo, and luckily for us the Travel Gods were smiling down on us today. After our six-hour train ride from Jogja to Surabaya, we were accosted by a man on the station platform who took us to an agent that could get us on a mini-bus ASAP. The bus took us to Probolinggo, and from there we transferred to a public bus heading up the mountain. All the pieces seemed to be falling into place at the right time, and we were both quite pleased considering that we had only estimated that we'd make it as far as Surabaya that day!

It was dark by the time we got there, and it had taken a lot more rupiahs than we had anticipated, but we finally arrived on the top of Mt. Bromo by the end of the day. Woohoo! Expecting to jump out of our bus and onto a little platform to find 'Amazing Race' host Phil waiting for us, with a local in full costume to welcome us to Mt. Bromo, and then hearing "Congratulations! You're the first team to arrive," we were a little disappointed to see no one there waiting for us, no TV cameras, no prize to be won... But hey we're on Bromo! That's prize enough! We were shocked to realize, however, how damn cold it was on top. But, considering that we're 2700 metres above sea level, I guess that's to be expected. We donned our woolies, checked into our room, and after dinner went straight to bed.

After a good sleep-in and a long breakfast, Janelle and I took a stroll through the little town so that we could get our bearings. And oh wow, what bearings they were! The town, Cemoro Lawang, is precariously balanced on the edge of a massive volcanic crater. And inside this gigantic crater (we're talking several kilometres in diameter here!) are three volcanic cones, one of which is steaming, and surrounding the big crater are other volcanic peaks. And far in the distance looms Mt. Semeru - the biggest, baddest volcano in all of Indonesia. The crater floor (known as The Sand Sea) is nearly completely devoid of any vegetation, and with the lava mountains steaming all around, the place looks more like the surface of an alien planet than somewhere here on Earth. It's definitely the most other-worldly vista that I've ever laid eyes upon!

Mt. Bromo is the name of the steaming volcano in the middle of the crater, and it's here that the tourists flock from around the world to scale up its side and then gaze down into its steaming mouth. We decided to rent horses and travel to Bromo this way instead of walking. It ended up being a total blast, even though I've only ever been on a horse once in my life and so was feeling a little unsure what to do. The horse was also much too small for me as well (he looked more like a big pony) and I felt kinda bad making him drag my fat ass up and down that crater rim as he was making kinda funny noises on the uphill portions. Poor guy!

The views as we crossed the Sand Sea were unbelievable. It was windy and dusty, and the whole place had a sorta 'Wild West' feel to it. Like Janelle and I were desperados on the run, hiding out in this stark, empty landscape. Way cool. We got to the bottom of Bromo and had to climb up the staircase to the top. Being so high in elevation we were completely out of breath, and had to stop for rests several times. The view from the top though was completely and utterly breathtaking! Bromo's open jaw gaped up at us and emitted a foul, sulphuric vent of steam. The cool wind whipped our hair around and threatened to push us off the top. And all around us was the wide open expanse of the Sand Sea below us. AMAZING!

We took a little hike around a quarter of the rim's edge and it was quite perilous in places. One wrong step and you'd either be rolling down into the Sand Sea, or even worse, into Bromo's angry steamy mouth! But, again, with views like that you just can't say no. You could travel every corner of the globe and never see a sight like this. It's volcanoes up and close like you've never imagined, high atop the world in the upper atmosphere, with 360 degrees of peaks, cones, craters, and hardened lava. Wow wow wow. This is a geographer's dream come true. I've always been fascinated with volcanoes for as long as I can remember, and now here I was standing on top of one. Surrounded by a half-dozen other even bigger ones. I just wanted to soak in as much of the moment as I could.

We took the horses back into town and had a relaxing afternoon reading and eating. The next morning we woke up at the crack of dawn. No, let me rephrase that. We woke up several hours before the crack of dawn actually. 3:30am to be precise. Now normally I'd be unable to provide a valid reason for voluntarily waking up at such an ungodly hour, but we had good reasons today. We were going to be driven up one of the local volcanoes to watch the sun rise. We were shuffled into a jeep with some other keen travellers, and we took off back into the crater. And we weren't the only ones either. Behind and ahead of us, a virtual stream of jeep lights proceeded across the crater, caravan-style, all for the same destination. The top of Mt. Penanjakan borders the crater to the north, and it's from its lofty peak that all the postcard photos are taken.

The road was long, steep, and very windy as we climbed up the mountain, and when we got to the top we had just a short hike to our viewpoint. There we huddled in the freezing cold of the early morning (temperatures must've been barely above zero, I kid you not) and watched the sun slowly creep above the horizon. The display put forth by Mother Nature was well worth freezing my balls off at the top of that mountain. Beginning as only a faint orange flow behind distance peaks, the sky slowly brightened until the sun's firey orb rose up above the rocks. We all watched in sheer awe as the colours in the Sand Sea and on the volcanoes changed from black to grey to purpley-pink to brown. All the while lil' Bromo eagerly steamed away, and Semuru in the distance belched out fresh puffs of toxic volcanic ash into the crystal clear sky. Truly, truly magnificent.

After the sun was up everybody was driven back down to the base of Bromo, and once again we got to climb up the side. After enjoying the views for a second time we headed back to our hotel for breakfast, and then it was time to leave. We had tickets booked to take us to Bali, and it would turn out to be another very, very long day of travelling. After being dropped off at an oven-hot bus station for three hours, we caught an excrutiatingly long bus ride to the edge of Java. We were all bored to tears and eager to get to beachy Bali, but luckily Janelle and I had some good company to keep us entertained. We met Laura and Wibrand from Holland, and brother-sister duo Scott and Sarah from England, and the six of us passed the hours away by playing The Name Game.

Much, much later, after a ferry ride to Bali, and then another long bus ride along the edge of Bali, we finally arrived in Denpasar - the island's capital. Feeling exhasuted but knowing that we were almost at the end, the six of us pushed ourselves on to Kuta - the beach resort of all beach resorts in Asia. From Bromo to Kuta it took fifteen hours, two giant-ass islands, one ferry ride, and 1001 celebrity names to take us all the way there. Running completely on empty we browsed through a few hotels in a daze before finally just picking one and crashing to bed. God that was a long journey. Bali better be damn worth all that! ;-)