close encounters of the volcano (& waterfall) kind, Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park

Written in Seminyak, Bali (where we are being lazy slugs) on Sunday 12th & Monday 13th June about Wednesday 8th June 2016.

It’s a long, winding, and eventually ascending (with gears screaming) car journey from Surabaya airport to Bromo National Park. The trip seems longer than it might as our driver is only that, which – having been so lucky with our hosts in Kalimantan – is a bit of a surprise to us. He is also fasting for Ramadan, so may of course be even less inclined to chat than usual, but it does leave us a little lost as to the etiquette when it comes to lunch and eating ourselves. The debate eventually ends up being, do we eat at the “break point” (a sentence uttered) in front of a whole group of workers or crunch petrol station snacks noisily in the back of the car behind one man, who is potentially very committed to his religion. It’s hard to know when he isn’t able to / doesn’t want to communicate with us. We realise what a huge difference a small amount of communication can make to a  journey, something which becomes more of an issue as we progress. We are by no means blameless here and wish we had more of a grip on Bahasa but we try, futile as it seems.

As I write we are now in Seminyak, Bali. We came a day early: a decision made due to heavy drooping sleepy lids and glazed eyes reflected in flashes back to our own open ones in the passenger seats as we watched like hawks, after one too many too close for comfort encounters with vehicles on the opposite side of the road. When you put someone else in the driver seat you really are putting your life in their hands. You can still control it to a certain extent, by insisting they stop and drink, or pray, or eat something (now that 5.20pm and sunset was an hour ago), giving them chewing gum, zipping your bag open and closed to create some noise distraction. In the end (on a third eyelid droop) we insist he stop, buy something to drink and walk around a bit. However, its the driver who needs to recognise there is a problem and take responsibility for their own, and your, life. After all we only have the one. I don’t think I’m over dramatizing it to say that one short hour’s drive to the blue fire of Ijen at midnight might have been our last had we continued with the itinerary. When we see the road a few days later, with our new driver, we know 100% made the right decision: it only takes one second to have an accident or get too close to the edge of a precipice, in the dark, on a treacherous corner. Neither of us wanted our last sight to be surprised eyes flashing back at us in the rear view mirror.

It leaves an anxious feeling in our stomachs and we are cautious about what to do next but our Indonesian based travel agent works her magic and – in one short evening and despite the difficulties which I imagine must be inherent to finding staff during Ramadan – she manages to sorts us out an alternative chauffeur and guide. Rian and Pak Poer are brilliant and when we set off to Ijen Crater Lake we know we are in safe hands.

First though, Gunung (volcano) Bromo and another not so chatty driver who – if it existed – might just be in the running for the Speedy Gonzales Trophy of the jeep driving world. He is definitely in a hurry for more than just the sunrise at 3am, as we bounce across deep charcoal crevices and I’m grateful for the overpowering spell of diesel as my belly bubbles and air escapes from where it shouldn’t (we later deduce that Satay has soy in it and perhaps my wheat intolerance is worse than I’d realised. Pretty much everything I’ve eaten since we arrived has gone straight through me – which was helpful on our Kalimantan boat of course where I ate the lions share of our daily feast some days (only to be expected from those who know me!).

Precarious cliff-edge-concrete bollards loom out of the dark, interlaced with rust-horizontal poles guarding us from the precipice. The engine screams as we rise and rise and whip past the other 4x4s.  Where there is a choice he always takes these bumpy ellipses to nip in front, so we hope nothing is coming the other way in this lunar landscape which reminds us of Iceland. Our tin can gets us safely to Gunung Bromo and we ascend the hill, after a pit stop for banana fritters (I pick off the batter) and coffee. My belly is still bad so I pay Rp2000 to use the downstairs toilet which doesn’t smell so great and clock the banana fritters being deep fat fried right outside. Hmmm.

We make it up to the sunrise on Mount Penanjakan with maybe a hundred others who, as is our human habit, subtly jostle each other for prime photo stop, leaving no spaces for those who arrive behind.

It’s not a bad dawn but my stomach is jabbing me and there are too many loud English speaking voices(!) and not enough gaps in the human wall in front of us.

We eventually realise that you can see the ridged volcano panorama of Mount Bromo and Mount Semeru from the other side so grab a photo from there.

I try to work out what the volcano’s remind me of and it’s a long ago memory of throwing open my bedroom curtains to see a (freshly grass grown from seed lawn) pockmarked with molehills (to the horror of my Dad).

We give up early and start back to our driver but accidentally happen across an (even better?) photo opportunity on the un-watched side of the mountain.

The orange of the early morning sunshine streams towards our eyes and warms our skin as we shed our Bromo branded woolly hats and multiple layers.  I pay another Rp3000 for the use of a toilet, which was almost I’m not sure how many times as much, when the guy tried to short change me by multiple tens of thousands. My fault for not having the right change. Either way I didn’t pay the local rate but my bowels thank me anyway. We track back to our driver and start our descent.

The landscape looked like it would be totally barren from our accommodation at Lava View Lodge but as we get into the valleys and dips there are fields and (literally) truck fulls of voluptuous purple leaf tinged cauliflowers and white-green-fresh cabbages. Wooden huts on stilts and roads perch edged with flowers of vibrant purple, yellowest yellow and red hot pokers. There’s a curious little tree here which jumps out at us once in a while – it has upside down frilled trumpet flowers as big as your hand, in understated yellow and demure peach.

We reach a plateau scattered with horses and suddenly we are surrounded. We are clear about our intention about walking our own selves up to the volcano mouth-edge and not needing an arch-necked horse to get there and they eventually drop off and leave us be.

It smells of horses and horse shit, which I guess isn’t so surprising.  The steep steps are banked with charcoal covered soil which turns them into shallow slopes which we ruminate would be treacherous in the rain.

Every so often we pause to get a photo of the sweeping sight behind which looks all the more vast for the now miniature people, jeeps and horses we have left behind (see middle of the photo below…)

The smell of sulfur hits the back of our throats when we reach the craters’ lip, making us cough and splutter as we adjust to the fumes. It’s a pretty epic view which I attempt to capture on an iPhone panorama, because you need to see the whole thing, not just a part of it, to understand how grounding it is.

Definitely one of those Uluru-type places (I think the first epiphany I had like this was in the Australian outback at the age of 18). When you’re lucky enough to land somewhere like this for a while, you realise how tiny you are on this magnificent, fiercely beautiful planet.

We lollop back down, trailing a Japanese lady who manages to sure-footedly stay ahead of us even whilst balancing an exhausted crying child on her hip. Back to our driver who deposits us back to our lodge for breakfast (french toast apparently not possible despite a presence of bread, beaten egg and frying pans – ho hum), then journey two of our day begins.

For two girls who were less than enthralled about the prospect of a cold shower at our Bromo accommodation (which turned out to be a futile concern – gas heater), Indonesia then served up a hilarious practical joke. No heads up or warning for this one of course from our (non speaking) driver. And a conclusion that next time we need to check our thumbed Lonely Planet before.

We pull up at a barrier next to a Warung selling those tapioca shrimp flavoured (no shrimp actually included) snacks and are (sort of) introduced to our guide who points us to two motorcycle riders. We hop on the back of one each and zoom downhill over an undulating pot-hole filled road to the entrance for Madakaripura Waterfall. Ladies at the entrance try to sell us flip flops and waterproof capes but we have our pack-a-way macs and how wet can it get?!

Our guide leads the way (always ahead of, instead of beside you) and we’re stopped by just one group of teenagers for a selfie on the way. Suddenly we are at a boulder and are directed to put on our waterproofs. Our guide takes my backpack and camera (okayy) under his yellow see through cape and we carry on.

I am wearing slip on shoes so avoid the puddles here and there. As the rocks start to get wet and slippery our guide grabs (both of our) hands and ‘guides’/drags/pulls us along… It soon becomes very apparent how ridiculous my attempts to keep my shoes dry were as we plunge through the middle of a spout spilling gallons of water a minute into the river below.

“This way this way, go!”

Oh we’re going through this knee-deep river bit. Blast it (which wasn’t what I actually said under my breath) never mind about the shoes, they are getting soaked either way. Good job they are cheapies. And Emma is in flipflops! Why they are selling those to come up a slippery waterfall?!

Onwards! Push from behind on my hand, Emma pulled behind.

Right.

And oh, look now we’re up to our thighs and whoops there goes another gallon of water.  We are unapologetically soaked skin-deep right the way up to our pants and titter at how ridiculously ill prepared we were for this. I begin to get annoyed at the pull push hurry hurry technique of our guide though and on the third attempt manage to successfully extricate my fingers. He keeps trying to ‘help’/grab me again but I’m not well suited to being hand-held and want both of mine available should I trip and fall (which being me is fairly likely). Plus I don’t really want to take him and Emma in her ill-suited flip flops (and now cut toes) with me.

We are commanded to take photos at various view points inside this huge pouring spout of water which torpedoes down with no regard for my poor (non waterproof, fairly expensive, retro style metal finish Olympus EP1).

I start to get properly irritated at being dragged, and bossed around and told where to stand and what to take photos of and Emma says that from under the hood of my rain-mac with my curly hair hidden I start to look just like my sister Sarah does, when she’s pulling her serious-eyebrows-face (she’s a teacher and has a definite ‘don’t mess with me’ look: no quite as zealous as the orangutan-don protecting his bananas but clearly unimpressed whatever way you look at it).

I try not to be too obvious about it but he must notice as he starts to try and dry my sodden camera on his t-shirt and I start to think he’s perhaps sweet and well meaning and just wants to show off his country. Then he demands a “tip for local guide” before we get back to the main entrance and out of view of anyone else. My annoyance is sealed and I give him half of what I would have and I imagine the unimpressed Sarah-face probably came back out. We walk back to the bikes in complete sog-filled silence. Emma and I later laugh at my utter sense of humour failure (I hate having wet feet but at least they are not cold as they squelch around in my shoes) and I tell her how my wet trekking trousers started to warm up the the temperature of fresh urine. Lesson learnt. Lonely Planet first. We survive and it’s maybe the funniest tale of the trip so far.

The drive onwards to ‘the sunrise of Java’ Banuwangi and the welcomingly plush Hotel Santika. It’s a good place to be after our adventures so far we are perhaps a little too overjoyed at the options for room service, massage and laundry (the latter is the most exciting because everything we have with us is damp with musky with sweat and the dampness of the jungle). We toast the fact we are still alive over a large Bintang. This was the journey where Emma who was paying attention thank goodness, alerted me to the first signs of sleepy eyes (after noticing a car flashing three times coming in the head on direction). At one point it was looking increasingly likely that we would not make it here in one piece, so we are relieved to be alive still and resolve that we will not do the midnight blue fire tour to Ijen. It might be a spectacular site, but only if you get there and it’s not a risk we’re willing to take just for a cool photo (not something you’ll hear me say without good reason). Besides a lay in tomorrow after our 3am start yesterday sounds quite appealing right now.