Climbing Mt Bromo

Toilet at bus station
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El- The tour to Mount Bromo with a group would have cost us $200 eac h which we thought was crazy so we decided to brave the journey to Probollingo on public transport.

Kris - yeah as some of the photos show, it is not as nice as stanley bus station! and thats saying something! we were harrassed from the moment we got out our taxi, we ended up paying for our a/c bus (which, can i add was bloody freezing!) and waited for our 11 0'clock trip through the night.

El- We had a long wait so I stayed on the bus to make sure it didnt drive off and Kris went for a wander. Kris has a way of tucking his little lonely planet book under his arm with all the yellow post-it notes sticking out, so that everyone thinks he is some official lonely planet worker. About ten minutes after he joined me back on the bus the guy we bought a ticket from came on to the bus and gave us a chunk of our money back giving some sort of feeble reason. We will have to try this tactic more often!!

hole in the floor
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Kris- haha i forgot about that, we could have done with better transport tho coz the journey was so uncomfy!

El- When we were on the ferry Kris actually ordered me off the seats so he could grab some shut eye, so I wandered up onto the deck and realised I was the only non-local on the whole ferry. It was very strange. But the bus kept carrying on, stopping every now and then to let a new person on (one of which had a basket of fresh fish, which really enhanced the rest of the journey!!)

our bus
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Kris - "okay bromo! this is your stop" all of a sudden a bunch of people tried to get us off the bus "No mate i want to go to the bus station!" well like we have learned raisng your voice doesn't work here. the people helping us off were actually working for a group specialising in trips to bromo so it was convenient but as guessed at a little extra price. it was 5 in the morning (the clocks go back on this journey) so we just agreed! El jumped on a scooter and came back from the ATM with money to pay for our jeep to the volcano and transport to and from cemero lawang.

Locals playing some chess
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El-I was very scared on he scooter! I would never normally grab on so tightly to a complete stranger but I felt it was necessary. I think I let out a few little yelps as we took some of the tighter corners! Anyway...we got on the public bemo up to Cemoro Lawang which was like a local bus. It took a very long time as locals kept jumping on and off with baskets of food etc but eventually we made it to Cafe Lava and booked a lovely little room. We were absoloutely exhausted at this point and spent most of the rest of the day asleep, ready to get up at 2am to start our journey up the volcano!

El and her scooter buddy
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Kris - 2 came and the adrenaline really kicked in, i couldn't tell it was early, my sleep pattern was probably done in anyway! we both made use of our warm clothes including the jacket i got from the kids at the football.  that adrenaline started to turn to frustration however as our jeep turned up late "bloody tony!" (the travel agent from the day before) eventually we were picked up in a jeep with two thais and two dutch.  the journey to the top was worth the money on its own, a pitch black offroad rush over old lava plains and then up a mountain to the viewpoint!

how many sheep can you fit in a boot?
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El- The viewpoint on paper sounded so lovely but when we got there it was already jam-packed with tourists. Thanks to Tony's no-show jeep we were not in the best position but still managed to get a few good photos thanks to some nice people letting us squeeze in and by standing on anything we could find. Benches, rocks, etc. Anyway after the sunrise started to kick in we were like where is this volcano? Which one is it? Then we realise we were looking in the completely wrong direction and realised just in time to get some great photos before the clouds came and took over.

Bemo ride up to Cemero Lawang
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Kris- yeah the viewpoint was a bit of an anti climax, the best was still to come as we jumped in our jeep and retraced our tracks back down the mountain.  this time, as it was not pitch black, we could see that our earlier route had gone straight past the volcano and as we raced toward it the excitement kicked in again! its all good fun looking at a volcano from far away getting right up close and personal is another matter tho!

El- So our driver ("Scary eyes" as we called, him because Kris kept trying to ask him questions and the driver just stared out the window wide-eyed and expressionless and did not even blink or anything) dropped us off at the foot of the volcano and we set off on our walk to the top. It was very quiet up there. Probably because the walk was absolutley knackering!!! Most people were riding up on horses but no, we walked it! I nearly died as a result (whilst Kris barely broke a sweat) but it was so worth it when we reached the top. It was a live volcano so it kept blowing out sulphur at random intervals which smells like bad eggs.

Shopping Indonesian style
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Kris- walking around the crater was great fun, one slip and you were in! i think the photos we got are canny enough but you have to go there to appreciate the heat, smell, breathing difficulties and shear size of the beast! the complete landscape was a reminder of the consequence of last erruption.  this certainly was starting to make our journey more of an adventure!

El- Yeah I tried to tell Kris that we were being cultured but he said very dramatically "No el...this is nature!!" Anyway Crazy Eyes took us back to Cafe Lava and there we waited...waited...and waited for our lift to Yogjakarta to arrive...and waited. Did I mention that we waited? Anyway, after the first couple of hours Kris was like "We've been had. We've been had, Tony's in Peru with our money. Our lift is never coming" But of course in this laid back culture, the bus showed up in its own time and off we set...to Yogjakarta.