Catching up: Ijen Crater

A lot has happened since December. First, nothing happened. Or at least, it felt like nothing. I had about three weeks where I wasn't working (yes, I'm still on semester break at the university here, yes I feel guilty about it!), and just a few presentations/workshops here and there in local Surabaya schools. So a lot of time was spent in my room, watching Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. (I just got five seasons of it from a local ETA.)

I got so fed up with hangin' around Surabaya that I finally decided to try and organize a road trip with a few ETAs to somewhere of interest that was far, but not too far away to be a huge hassle. I looked in my Lonely Planet guidebook, and unfortunately, a lot of the cool touristy sites, like nature preserves and hiking areas, are not accessible during the rainy season, because it's just too dangerous. But Ijen Crater (Gunung Ijen) was supposed to be pretty hike-able even during the rainy season. So we decided to go there. It was supposed to be about a 5 to 6-hour drive, so we had to find a car and a driver to take us. My wonderful counterpart, Bu Wahju, made some calls, and was able to get us the university's car to use, free of charge, and then a friend of her husband's to drive us.

We were set! Me and two ETAs, Nina and Ellen, headed off on Friday afternoon, January 25. We drove five hours to a town near Ijen crater called Bondowoso, where we met up with a friend of my counterpart's, Bu Lia, who showed our drive how to get to Ijen, and also helped us find lodging and a place to eat dinner. She even paid for our dinners! Sheesh. The kindness of strangers, as my Fellow friend Deirdre would say.

We got up at 4am the next morning to drive the final 2 hours to the crater. On the way, we got to watch the sun rise over the nearby mountains.

Memories of Land Before Time. 

It turns out that another thing Ijen Crater is famous for (besides the cool crater) is its sulphur, for which men hike up the mountain several times a day to hack it out, carrying it back on their shoulders with a basket like this: 

According to my guidebook, these baskets typically weigh between 120 and 160 pounds!

We started up the trail, which, though not that long at 3km, took us about an hour and a half to reach the top. It was really steep most of the time, and that combined with the higher elevation forced us to stop every fifteen to twenty minutes to stop and catch our breaths. We were also really lucky that it hadn’t rained in a few days, since as you can see, the trail was mainly just dirt, and steep dirt at that! 

Nina and Ellen

Cool surrounding landscape. 

Finally, we reached the top! We were told to wear masks over our mouths to keep from breathing in too many sulphur fumes, but I took mine off for this lovely photo op. 

Me, Ellen, and Nina

The crater itself. Pretty cool, no?

We stopped on the way back at this little shack/stand to buy some cookies and instant coffee. It was nice to take a break and have some sort of breakfast before heading back down. 

There was also a weigh station for the men to weigh their sulphur loads. I tried to pick one up when the guy wasn’t looking….

After we finished the hike, it was only about 10am. We still had the whole rest of the day, and another night before heading back to Surabaya. So we decided to leave Bondowoso (a beautiful area, but there just wasn’t much to do there) in favor of driving part of the way back and spending the night in Malang, a fairly big city just two hours south of Surabaya. In that town, we got dinner at a nice restaurant connected to the Hotel Tugu (the nicest hotel in town!) and met up with Iris, the Fellow in Malang. She took us out to a nearby lounge, where we had fried banana and watched Rihanna music videos (more entertaining than it sounds!).

Fellow love. 

The next day, we drove to the town square, which is quite charming, got some Dunkin Donuts for our (second) breakfast, and then went to a spa place recommended by Iris to get massages. I got my first full body massage in Indonesia! $6 for one hour! I had to tell the lady literally three separate times to not massage me as hard, but I survived it pretty much intact and generally feeling better. I’m not so big on massages, but it seems like it’s a shame not to get them in this country, where it’s so common and so cheap!

Beautiful countryside. I miss this so much in Surabaya. 

More countryside out the front window of the car. 

"Alun-alun" (town square) of Malang.

So overall, I think everyone had a good weekend. Organizing this little trip was honestly more stressful than any of the workshops/seminars I’ve had to host here, but I’m glad we got to do it.