The Stricken Summit
East Java, Indonesia
Having wheezed my way up the infinite steps to the summit I was overcome with vertiginous fear as I stared into the apocalyptic vision that greeted me.
“Surely this is the Devil’s work,” I thought, as huge plumes of sulphurous, yellowish smoke bellowed out of the crater beneath me, up into the crisp blue sky overhead.
Standing at 2392 metres above sea level, Gunung Bromo in East Java is one of Indonesia’s premier tourist attractions. It is situated midway between the Javanese cultural capital of Yogyakarta and the beautiful and fragrant island of Bali, a convenient rest point for travellers and the most accessible of Indonesia’s 129 active volcanoes. Bromo is part of the world’s most extensive chain of volcanoes that form the celebrated ‘Ring of Fire’.
Turning my gaze away from the crater I looked down over the huge lunar ‘sea of sand’ that stretches away to the lip of the outer crater. Mel Gibson in Mad Max II would have felt extremely comfortable cruising across this desolate plane throwing metallic boomerangs at children’s heads. It is a forty-five minute walk across the parched sea from the fertile outer crater lip to the crumpled cone of Bromo. The abundant vegetation seems to drip down the steep walls of the outer crater, full of volcanic nutrients, and a powerful contrast to the ‘sea’.
Alongside Bromo stands her sister, a cone that has not yet blown its top. This fiery sibling, Kursi, is beautiful, the archetypal volcano; curvaceous, symmetrical and covered in a modest frock of green. Bromo, in comparison, is the ugly little sister. A grey horrified lump of rock, half-blown to smithereens, needing a facelift to restore its melted wax skin.
Another billow of smoke poured out of the fissure below me, whispering a ghastly hollow breath. The cavity is a sheer drop 30 metres below the viewing platform. However, the most hardened graffiti artists that know no fear have made their marks next to the lethal crack, writing such inspirational slogans as “Saya cinta Sari” (I love Sari) inside a large love-heart inscribed in magma.
In the midday sun, I couldn’t face the baking walk back across the sandy expanse and managed to hitch a ride in a 4WD with a chatty family from Indonesian Borneo. To get an overall view of the scene I wanted to take a walk around the outer lip, to see the cones from a distance. The scenery changes dramatically upon climbing to the edge of the outer lip. On the left stood the cones surrounded by the sand sea, whilst to my right, beautifully cultivated patches of land spread like a patchwork quilt quietly down the mountainside. These fertile fields are lovingly tended by the Hindu Tennger people, the last pocket of Hindus in Muslim Java.
As I began my descent in the crisp air of those rich mountains, I turned and marvelled for the last time as another wisp of smoke left the powerful cone of distant Bromo.
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