we arrived in probolinggo, java, in the wee hours of the morning of the 15th after another bus/ferry overnighter combo that took close to 20 hours. overpaid for our tickets, in all probability, at 250,000 RP each, and on an uncomfortable bus with malfunctioning recliners, at that. it was our fourth 4 hour ferry from lombok to bali, and our first drive across the width of the island, which took much longer than expected, at close to 4 hours. the final hour long ferry ride across the bali strait to java went by without us even getting off the bus. delirious, we were dumped, sometime between 4 and 5 am, not at the bus depot, which i guess we were supposed to have cleared with the driver beforehand, but at a random travel agency. the very place we fell victim to our own early morning thickheadedness. hours too late, as we re-read in LP, we learned that this precise scenario of being dropped off at random, over-charging travel agencies is a common trap set for tourists who have lost, or never had in the first place, the foresight to remember that every single indonesian in the travel industry geared toward tourists, is trying to rip you off. in our sleep deprived half sanity, we ended up not only overpaying for a bemo ride up to cemoro lawang, a one-horse town on the lip of the crater of the tengger massif, but also on a premature decision to book bus tickets to our next port of call in yogyakarta. at any rate, we made it to cemoro lawang, the most popular starting point for the trek to mt. bromo, by an uncomfortable, inflated 50,000 rp bemo ride.
overpay as we did, at least we had a great view from our room. perched on the steep slope of the crater wall, our windows looked out onto a vista of verdant farmland clinging to the fertile wall, the steep slope of which became shrouded in smoky vapors from the belching cones of nearby bromo as well as the more active semeru further away, the highest peak in java. a short 3 minute walk from our hostel also yielded superb views of gray, smoky bromo, and its greener, higher neighbor, batok. as the squat cone of bromo, at a lowly 2392 meters, is hardly noteworthy on its own (it's the otherworldly scenery of the park environs, as a whole, that makes it a spectacle), jesse was initially disappointed. i, on the other hand, far less experienced with volcanic settings, remained excited about catching my first sunrise on the "summit" of this famed mountain.
what was not so exciting was waking up the following morning at an unknown hour in the darkness of pre-dawn. we were supposed to have gotten a wake up call at 3:30 am. if by "wake up call", the proprietor meant the random distant crowing of roosters at inopportune morning hours, then get a wakeup call we did, i suppose. there was no other semblance of anything remotely close to a real wake up call, however, and we were shocked into wakefulness upon discovering that the deceptively dark view outdoors belied a sunset less than an hour away. dressed and ready in a flash, we were out the door and paying the 25,000 entrance fee five minutes later, at 4:40. a short walk downhill onto the floor of the crater and a slightly less than an hour walk across the "sea of sands" (a name more grandiose than the actual appearance: a somewhat shortsighted vista of grey volcanic sand) had our backs to a sunrise just beginning to tint the sky with swirls of red. the rise of color in the surrounding skies, as yet dark, did cast an otherworldy shadow over the whole lunarscape of the crater and its three volcanoes rising up out of hardened, granite waves of once molten lava. the white markers along the walking path that we had been following the whole time abruptly came to an end at a point close to the green slopes of the cone we'd thought to be bromo. in fact, bromo was the smoking, gray, dwarf cone to its left. correcting our path and walking toward the 253 steps that would lead to the top, the sunrise continued its rapid ascent. inclines are neither of our fortes, especially in 5 in the morning, and after gasping our way through the uphill of sand and up the steps (yes, altitude is noticeable even at this height), the sun could be seen in a fiery ball of red glory, simmering its way up to the increasingly jaundiced skies. the view from the top was more than pretty. with the 360 panorama of a crater stretching 10 km across, dotted with the three cones in tandem, puff-billowing semeru in the distance, and ringed by soaring green cliffs, the whole of the scene painted with the intensifying rise of the sun, there was something slightly supernatural about it all. you could even look down into the caldera of bromo and clearly see the puff of smoke being pushed out of the cracks of craggy lava rock.
best of all, we along with a swiss hiker were the first ones up there. joined shortly thereafter by one other tourist, we were able to enjoy the show in isolated serenity for at least an hour. perplexed that there was no one else up there, our curiosity was sated when we started to see 4x4's and horses first trickle in, then soon arrive en masse in the plain below. apparently, the majority of visitors to this area either get up too late to witness the sunise on bromo, or choose the supposedly more photogenic site of penanjakan mt. for sunrise, then make their way over to bromo for views and a peak into the steaming center. either way, by 7 am, the rim of the volcano and the steps leading up to it were positively crawling with european tourists decked out in their best cold weather climbing gear. of course these were the very people riding up to the base in jeeps or on horseback.
sated with our little piece of bromo, we decided the crowding indicated a good time to head back down and over to our hostel for breakfast and a short nap before check out at 12 and a subsequent 3-4 hr wait to catch the last bemo ride back down to probolinggo. no need to rush getting to the sprawling, dusty, and rather unattractive town, when time could be killed in lush, cool(!) mountain surrounds.
it's been something of a relief to be back in soothingly cool air, but cool turns to cold quickly in elevation, and i'm ready to be smothered by tropical heat all too quickly once again. prolonged time in southeast asia has me spoiled with warm caresses on bare skin 24/7...
More thumbnails ...
1 vote 
