After a few days relaxing in Lovina Beach, Linds and I decided that rather than returning to Dempansar and flying to Jogyakarta (our original plan when we booked our flights a few months ago), we would take a night bus to Mt. Bromo in the East of Java. The travel agent on the beach assured us that the ride would take place in an air conditioned luxury coach, after a ‘short time’ in a small van. The van picked us up, and two and a half hours later dropped us off at a gas station in the middle of nowhere. About 45 minutes later, we were actually picked up in said ‘luxury bus’, where we spent the next five hours before being dropped off in a deserted parking lot in Probolinggo, about an hour and a half drive from Mt. Bromo at 2 a.m. We eventually hitched a ride (at 6x the going rate, choices are limited early in the morning), and arrived up in Bromo around 3:30 a.m. The temperature had dropped about 25 degrees and it was close to freezing at the top of the mountain – it was my first occasion on our trip to wear my down jacket! Our drivers knocked on the doors of all the major hotels, but unfortunately they were all full. We finally ended up at a fairly dodgy home-stay – I am quite sure that the sheets had never been washed, but luckily exhaustion prevailed and we slept in until 9.

The island of Java is almost all originally volcanic, and there are 20 active volcanoes in existence today. Mt. Bromo is the most visited of the volcanoes and when we began our explorations of the area the next day, it was easy to see why.

The view of Bromo (on the left) from the town

We descended into the valley, and walked through grasslands for about 2 km

A dust devil along the way

Mt. Bromo smoking (we walked up and along the ledge of the volcano)

Ridges on the side of the volcano

Bromo in my sunglasses

Sunset shots

We had a great dinner at a hostel resembling an alpine chalet (it was pretty easy to forget you were in Indonesia!), and went to bed early to prepare for our 4 a.m. awakening. One of the most remarkable views of Bromo is at sunrise, so we woke up and hiked about 6 km to a viewpoint to enjoy it. Here’s what we saw:

The town of Bromo

A typical home in Bromo