BROMO + IJEN

BROMO + IJEN

Monday, 13 February 2017

 

It's been already one week ago, but wow, this was a big, tiring adventure. Together with a dutch girl I booked a tour to two famous volcanoes in Java: Bromo + Ijen. 2 nights, 3 days. The first day was a 12 hour bus drive with 2 russians who made a bad first impressian by ignoring us when we said friendly 'goodmorning' and 3 chinese people who made us wait for half an hour because they had to get breakfast at the Mac. 

After 12 hours, we finally arrived in our hotel. I was happy we only had to sleep here for a few hours because of my bed which was almost falling apart and my pillow that felt like a rock. 

The next morning we had to wake up at 2.30 to go to a viewpoint. It was a tough hike going up for about half an hour. We were supposed to see the sunrise, but we saw nóthing. Just fog. So much fog. (3rd photo ;). This was already a big dissappointment and it was freezing cold. At the time we had to be in the bus again everyone was there except from the 2 russians. After waiting one hour (!) we finally left without them. Everyone was irritated. The bus brought us to a point were we had to get into a jeep which brought us to the Bromo. It was already light and happily the fog was disappearing a little bit. Because we lost much time we had to run up and down the volcano in one hour. It was nice, but when we were at the top we couldn't see anything again. So we weren't able to look into the crater. 

We were at the jeep in time and I don't know how they got there, but the russians were there too. They were yelling at our group and even started pulling a girl who wanted to get in the Jeep. It was really bad. 

They didn't came with us but somehow they got back at the hotel in time. 

We finally had breakfast at 10 A.M. and half an hour later we had to be ready to go to the next destination. 

In the next hotel we arrived in the afternoon and also this was a hotel I was happy about to only sleep there for a few hours. I went to bed very early and had to wake up at 00.30. Not a nice time at all. With everyone half asleep in the bus we went to the Ijen volcano. Together with a guide we had to hike in the dark for a very long time. It was really hard and the way was only going up. It's really tiring that you don't see where you walk, only a few meters you can look in front of you in the dark with a flashlight. When we were almost at the top we had to put on our gas masks. 

And then we had to go down into the crater. We went in much deeper than I thought we would. There were also many workers who have to walk up and down all day long for about €3,50 and their work is so hard. They have to get a special kind of rock out of the crater. 

After a loooong hike I suddenly saw something blue in the dark. That's what we did it for: the blue flames. It was so magical to see this. Every 3 minutes I had to close my eyes because the wind was blowing all the smoke our way and then sometimes in between the fog I saw the blue flames. Very special moment!

When we got on top again it was light. The way down seemed so long and in the bus I was so happy I could sit down. With the ferry we went to Bali and it was also two more hours from there with the local bus to the hostel. I've never been so tired I think. But we did it!