TUTUTUTUTUTUTUTUTUTU.
The alarm started ringing.
It was 2 am and the prayers from nearby minarets had stopped playing for a mere 3 hours. Ramadan can be a challenging time to travel, from closed shops to loudspeakers blasting sound till late.
But the jeep was waiting outside the hotel and all the camera gear needed to be checked before departing. The camera turned on, it was a good sign. The batteries were full.
You might think of Indonesia as a hot, tropical, humid country, but you’d better cover up when hiking on top of mountains or volcanoes.
Luckily I brought with me my loyal neck warmer that I keep in my pocket every time I travel to use as a sleep mask, as a neck warmer, as a gas mask, as a dust mask etc etc. People who travel with me know about this crucial piece of gear and the outstanding fashion sense that comes with it.
I was ready to conquer another volcano.
The jeep ride was one of the spookiest rides I’d been on. It was pitch black and the only visible things around were the other jeeps in front of us. The rest was a sea of mist and dust. Only later I would understand why that was the case.
After a very bumpy ride across the Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park we reached the top of Gunung Penanjakan, a mountain in front of Mount Bromo ready to observe the first light of the morning. Being the lucky fella I always am, I found the last available flat surface where to set my camera on before all the other tourists flooded the place. Who needs a tripod when you have Fortuna on your side.
And then I waited.
And waited.
The view was starting to get interesting and very alien. The smoke was coming out of the volcano lit by the full moon and the stars.
From up there, I could clearly see the mist that had wrapped our jeep for the last hour. Everything started to feel very magical.
I was supposed to go to Mount Bromo three years prior with a couple of friends, but there was a red alert in the area and the site had to be closed off for a while. Instead, we went to Ijen (you can read about it here) and had to put Bromo back into our bucket list.
Not only Ijen was stunning, but the whole delay also made me enjoy Bromo more than I probably would have few years before.
The photos below should be a good representation of how special the whole place felt when the morning light hit the crater rim.
The smoke was changing colour from a nightly blue to a vivid red as it was coming out of the crater.
Nearby, a village appeared out of nowhere (Laputa Castle in the Sky? Anyone?).
It sat on a ridge that reminded me of the cliffs in the south of Bali. But at the bottom of the cliffs there was no water, just silky mist crashing like waves onto the ridge.
The light was just perfect, the whole scene felt like a meticulously prepared set, with lights illuminating all the right spots.
The jeep was waiting for me. I rushed towards it, ready to dive into the mist.
Few minutes later, the sun disappeared as we entered the thick fog.
The fog covers a plain which is known as the Sea of Sand, which is slightly misleading, since the ground is actually covered in very fine volcanic ashes. I felt like Curiosity for the whole time that I was crossing that sea. It was like having landed on Mars, but without the courtesy of Elon.
Suddenly, in the bright white diffused light, horses started to materialise. At first just a handful of them, but eventually I was fully surrounded by them.
Apparently horses are the main mean of transportation for tourists that don’t want to walk from the Sea of Sand to the top of the crater. Although somewhat unnecessary as the walk is no more than half an hour, the horses provided for a great photographic subject.
Clearly it took me way longer than half an hour to reach the crater as I was overwhelmed by the beauty of my surroundings and I was distracted by the horses speeding fast past me, suddenly emerging from afar just to abruptly disappear again in the mist in a matter of second.
The walk up the crater got steep very soon, but it allowed me to take a breather and observe the mist slowly leaving the plain as the day got older. And, just to give you an idea of how thick the fog was, I had no clue that there was a temple in the middle of the plain and I pretty much walked within 30 meters of it.
I reached the top at around 10 am. The smoke was incessantly coming out of the crater. I could finally see the valley completely emptied out of its haze.
It was possible to walk around the rim, but the path was slippery and it got sketchy and dangerous fairly quick, so I decided to head back to my jeep and enjoy the ride back to Surabaya.
As I’m writing this during Covid-19 and having no chance of leaving Singapore anytime soon for a trip, I miss those random, bumpy rides on not so regular vehicles.
My job as Curiosity, showing you images from a Mars like place is over.
Godspeed.
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The Voyaging Snapper 