Friday, June 06, 2008

Rockers versus the volcano

Mt. Bromo is one of those deals where you head out at 3 a.m. so you can be there for the sunrise. Luckily our room was so cold -- Bromo gets down to 10 Celsius/50 Fahrenheit -- we were glad to get up and move around so we could warm up a little.

The hotel people put us in a jeep and drove us up to a summit with a great view of Bromo and surroundings.

There were some other people there, too. Like maybe 200 people. You could hear murmurings in Indonesian, Javanese, Dutch, Japanese, French and who knows what other languages.


The sunrise was pretty good. And once the sun came up, the view only got better, because Bromo itself is a surreal landscape of volcanoes that look hand-sculpted. One of them was erupting in the background every 20 minutes or so, just to add to the effect.


All around the viewing point there were people renting out winter jackets and selling batteries, t-shirts and drinks. Several boys were selling flowers you could use as an offering to the volcano gods. This one said "Indonesian rockers!" when I took his picture.

5 comments:

alw said...

oh my god...that looks and sounds so incredible. what did you offer to the volcano gods?

Trish said...

I glared at a guy who was blasting insipid pop tunes on his boombox. I think the volcano understood.

Anonymous said...

wow, what a gorgeous spot. those photos w/the filmy clouds are incredible! like being on another planet or something.

Haviva said...

I cannot believe how crowded it was when you were there. We went up in the "off" season and literally it was us, an Irish couple we hiked with and then maybe, at most 8 other people. Glad you got a good show though!

Trish said...

Wow, you guys were lucky, Haviva! I'd say 200 is a conservative estimate. Was the top just a busted-up landscape of broken concrete when you were there?