A surprisingly modern and comfortable train takes us from Jogjakarta to Surabaya in four short hours. It is a further 3 hours by car from the dirty and unattractive Surabaya rising up the mountain along winding narrow roads through verdant jungle. Our overnight base is 1900 metres above sea level at the cool misty Jiwa Jawa resort.
Three a.m. comes around quickly and after an unusually restless night I am well below par. Our jeep is waiting for us and it’s an often bumpy trip to Mt Bromo National Park for a sunrise lookout. Nothing is as I expected this morning. Being the off-peak season I expected a hardy few tourists but looking back out of the jeep is a line of headlights as far as the eye can see. Apparently we are part of a convoy of over 400 jeeps!
Being a national park I expected to find nothing but nature on arrival. I forgot that this is Indonesia and there are literally kilometres worth of brightly lit stalls selling anything from jackets to food and souvenirs all hustling and doing a roaring trade at 4 a.m.
Despite the crowds I find a nice patch of dirt below the lookout to taken in the daylight over the nearer Bromo Volcano and Mt Severus brooding higher n the distance.
Sated with the view and a “camera” full of pictures we drive down to the foot of Bromo for the 400 metre climb to the rim situated at 2300 metres. The climb up starts across a long stretch of black volcanic sand that slopes gradually upwards. Although the altitude is not extreme the lower oxygen levels do play with our breathing. The walk is a 40 minute up hill push and is more arduous than the “easy” descriptor but the view from the rim looking down into the crater belching out a steady thick plumes of smoke and the sound of lava sloshing below like waves at a beach is magnificent. Face to face with the power of nature is humbling.
One third of the way my beautiful life partner declared herself “cooked”. To her credit she waved me on and I felt for her but understood her decision. The final part of the ascent is a steep 250 step climb. Three quarters of the way up I take a breather and am gobsmacked. Looking back slowly and steadily climbing to the foot of the stairs is the unmistakeable “Barbie” pink jacket Suzanne bought for this trip. Looking bedraggled she makes it all the way up. I love this woman and her determination. On the way back in the jeep she was heard to say “I wasn’t going to let the f***er beat me!
