Of Mountains an Volcanoes: The Bromo Experience

The trip to Bromo was absolutely one of a kind experience. From the conference in Yogyakarta, I tagged along with my dear Indonesian friends Oghe and Yodha to the city of Malang 6 hours away. However, they both just recently went to Bromo. Luckily, there were also 4 other people already registered as we went to the tour agent, so my travel that day will be along with those other four.

I met all of them at 1 a.m. at their hotel and our tour starts at the same time. The journey to the top was freaking scary with narrow and bumpy roads. It was so dark all you can see are the stars and the path ahead shined by the jeep. It took 3 hours to get to the base point. We reached the base around 4, and there we met so many other people from other tours. They were all preparing for the last hike up to the top, and were having breakfast, coffee while waiting for the sun to rise around 5 a.m

We went to the top around 4.30 a.m. It was freezing cold, and the air up there was thin so we easily get breathless as we hiked up the hill. It was still dark, and the skies were amazingly clear. There were a lot of people up there waiting for the sunrise, watching the stars. The stars were beautiful, and we occasionally see shooting stars, and everybody will go ‘Oooh’ everytime they see one. It was kinda funny

Then, the first orange streak appears above the horizon. Sunrise was coming, everybody was so excited, I’ve never seen people so excited seeing a sunrise before, people usually dread waking up in the morning. Haha. As the sun came out, the grounds below became more and more visible. The mountains seems floating above the clouds. The view was absolutely amazing, I can never be able to describe it in words. We were there for almost 2 hours just marveling the beauty of Allah’s creation. 

 Then we went down by the jeep to one of the hills with the same view of Mount Bromo. I had a really nice coffee overviewing the volcano. Best coffee experience ever! As I was sitting there looking at the volcano I saw small miniature boxes moving around the volcano leaving the trail. I looked more carefully and realized, heck, it was the jeeps! I never realized the volcano is so freaking huge until I compare it with the size of the jeeps which looks so minute next to the volcano. Then we made it down to the volcano crater itself.

We stopped by at ground level near the volcano to have some breakfast. The place was like a desert, full of sands and dusts. We literally ate dust along with our breakfast. We took a few photos and continued our journey to the volcano crater.

We had to stop 2 km away from the crater and started hiking again. It was so tiring, but on top, we can see the crater so deep and scary you’re gonna be so dead if you slip into one of these  

Then we went down and passed through a somewhat grass field that looked that African savannah. It was beautiful as well, and we took a lot of pictures, and went ahead to see some of the hillside farms, watched the people growing various fruits and vegetables, and lastly went to a waterfall.

The trip has taught me that the Creator’s creation is so magnificent, amazing and huge and we are just a speck of dust in comparison to the universe he created. Sometimes when we are so stuck up in our daily life, we forget these things. We forget that your troubles is just a speck in a dust in a universe. I need to take times for this kind of trips once in awhile. It reminds me that whatever you face in life, there is always a way to get through it, and when you don’t, don’t worry. Life is so much worth living to see other beautiful things on earth