As you may have noticed, I
haven’t travelled as much as in P2 as I did in P1. I had Mom and Dad in town,
as well as a few such as BCG Olympics that I did not want to miss, and I was
trying to save some money. I was hesitant about travelling this weekend, but
thank god I did.
I came with five friends
(Chantal, Helena, Daniel, Martin, and Al) on a hiking tour in East Java,
Indonesia. We arrived at Surabaya airport on Thursday night and took a 3-hour
van to a hotel/ motel in Cemara Lawang, just below the Bromo Mountain. We slept
very briefly to wake up at 3:30 am, and let the adventure begin. For less than
one hour, we took a Jeep ride up the mountain, among many other Jeeps and
motorcycles – quite a chaos for such an early time in the day. We then arrive
at the top of Tengger mountain around 4:30 am, and waited for the famous and glorious
Bromo sunrise. We waited, and waited, and froze, and waited, and all of a
sudden there was light out but we saw no sunrise. It was so cloudy and rainy
that we took our asses out of bed at 3:30 am for nothing. All we could see was
this:
By then, it was around 5:00
am and we were up, so we decided to move on to the second milestone of the day:
walking up Bromo and checking its amazing views. So we did. We got ourselves in
the car again, drove for a few minutes, and went for a hike. It was still
cloudy and grey when we arrived at the plain land below Bromo, but it was
already gorgeous enough. We hiked for a bit while lazy Chantal rented a donkey
(or a horse, or whatever), and then climbed quite a few stairs to the top of
the volcano crater. G-o-r-g-e-o-u-s, as you can see from the pictures below.
Around 8 am, although it
seemed to us that it was midafternoon, it was breakfast time back at the hotel –
Indonesian fried rice, fried noodles (for those who eat gluten), and omelet –, followed
by nap time. At 9:30 am we left the hotel again to do rafting in Pekalen Water
River. Guess what? It started pouring rain right before we arrived at the venue,
and rafting got cancelled. Lucky day, uh? But we did not give up. We then
decided to keep travelling towards Mount Ijen – where we would hike in the
following day. We stopped for a (poor) Java lunch on the way, and just slept a
lot and woke up every once in a while, for gorgeous green views and chaotic traffic.
By 5:00 pm we were at the
hotel, “showered”, had a very decent dinner, and chatted a bit before going to
bed around 9 pm. Bed at 9 pm??? Yup, our alarm clocks were going to ring at
00:50 for an incredibly early wake-up call!
We did manage to leave the
hotel at 1:00 am, as planned. I am not sure for how long we drove until Mount
Ijen, as we all slept like babies, but I would say it was around 30 minutes and
1 hour. Before 2:00 am, we started hiking up, down and straight, with lights in
our heads and masks in our mouths, without seeing much more than a meter in
front of us. We passed through a sulfur mine, “blue fire” (as they call here
the blue smoke that comes out of some kind of sulfur reaction), the most acidic
lake in the world, and more. By 5 am, the sun was up – or at least there was
day light – and we realized how beautiful all the places we passed through
were. It was absolutely magical (and tiring too). At 8:00 am, we had hiked
around 12 km for 6 hours, and we still had the full day ahead.
We had delicious cooked
bananas and fruit chips, sat in the car, and slept for a few ours, on our way
to Mandakaripura Waterfall – one of the places we were not able to visit the day
before due to heavy rain. If we were not in love with this island already, the
waterfall by itself would make us fall for it. What a beauty!!! Imagining
arriving at a small food market, grabbing a motorcycle with a motorcycle driver
each, drive through the greenest forest you’ve ever seen, interrupted now and
then by even greener rice fields, up to this huge green rock walls with a
strong waterfall in between. Then imagine leaving the motorbikes behind, hiking
for around 15 minutes and putting yourself below the waterfall. It was
unforgettable and (literally) refreshing.
To finish the trip well, and
as we were going to sleep close to Surabaya airport on Saturday night, we
decided to treat ourselves with a nicer dinner and drinks. We nailed it at the
Domicile! What a great weekend! And what a great group. I am super ready to
study like crazy during the next two weeks. Yup, the next time I get on a plane
will be to fly home for Christmas. Can’t wait! <3
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