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Published: February 2nd 2008
We were promised an air con minibus to pick us up at 8am for our long journey to Gunung (Mount) Bromo. What did we get? A rickety old minibus with an exceedingly grumpy, madman, chain smoking driver and air con which was warm and as strong as a baby's sigh! What made it worse was that whenever the driver wanted a fag (which seemed to be every 10 minutes), he rolled down his window thereby cancelling the effect of the very weak air con.
Thanks to the crazy weaving in and out of traffic and high speed driving over speed bumps we arrived into Solo desperately needing a wee...good job we had to stop to collect other people for the rest of the journey to Bromo. In addition to ourselves, we were sharing a van with Umit, a Turkish guy who was excited to practice his English...secretly the 3 of us had been hoping it would just be us in the van so we could spread out and catch up on some sleep. We weren't in luck as we soon picked up an American couple, who were very strange...he was living in Solo studying and she had come to visit
the sunrise was the best we have seen...
...ok we have only seen a couple over the last 16 months, but it was good!him as her first trip outside of the US. They didn't really talk much and when they did talk they were very softly spoken so it was difficult to hear! The last member of our group was a sweet Japanese lady who spoke little English; she was super-excited and a little hyperactive about this trip because she was a vulcanologist.
After a couple of hours crawling through hordes of football supporters it was clear we weren't going to reach Bromo until well after dark. Finally at 8pm we arrived into darkness, we were tired, hungry and getting frustrated with arguing with the transport company about the price of a jeep for the next morning. We arrived at Café Lava - our accommodation for the night - to find that the café of Café Lava was closed and had been for 3 hours! Why close the restaurant when they know people are arriving late?! We ended up having a dodgy and overpriced meal at the hotel up the road before turning into our cold, damp and smelly room for a few hours of sleep before our 3am alarm call.
4 hours of sleep later and Donna grumbling very loudly
we loaded into a jeep with Umit and the Japanese vulcanologist to make our way to the viewpoint as we were too lazy to walk! This was definitely the earliest morning we had experienced ever, Donna not being a morning person in the slightest continued to grumble throughout the sunrise! Unfortunately luck was not with us that morning as the crater we were overlooking was obscured by cloud and steam from one of the volcanoes. We did however, achieve celebrity status at the viewpoint with every Indonesian and his wife wanting a picture of us...yes we did charge our nominal fee!
Just a little information about the Bromo area, it's a really strange geological formation, as you can see on some of the pictures. There are 4 volcanoes within close distance to each other, the highest being Gunung Semeru (3676m) which is also Java's highest peak and one of the most active volcanoes in Indonesia. Just in front of Semeru is a 10km wide crater where 3 volcanoes have emerged, Bromo is the smallest of the 3 and stands in a sea of volcanic sand - now mixed with horse shit (which makes for a lovely shit and sulphur
smell...mmm just what you need that early in the morning!). It's a stunning sight, as you can see from the pictures of Neil standing on the edge of the crater, it can seem like you are at the edge of the world. Well apart from the other 100 tourists standing around you that is! The Japanese vulcanologist was, at this point, very excitable - taking so many pictures, running between volcanoes, feeling the sand (hopefully there wasn't any horse shit mixed in!) and the volcanic rocks strewn around the crater. It was great to watch her get so excited and see someone very passionate about their work.
We perked up a little after breakfast, not so much because of the nice eggs, toast and fruit salad but mainly because of the treacle-like Indonesian coffee...soon after arriving into Indonesia, we remembered how strong it was. You need half milk, half coffee and around 4 teaspoons of sugar to make it drinkable. So much caffeine combined with so much sugar was bound to make us feel a little more awake. The only problem is that it's impossible to sleep after having Indonesian coffee!
A minibus collected us and drove us
to Probolinggo where we would catch our onward (ahem) air con tourist bus to Lovina in northern Bali for the start of some well earned beach time...another tough and very long journey to come.
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James
non-member comment
Hey
Hi, I have just spent the past 3 days reading your blog while sitting at my desk in rainy UK. I am due to go on my RTW trip in 5 months (and counting.....) with my girlfriend and am so glad that i discovered your blog as it has given me a good insight into a lot of places.