above the clouds
the drive to cemero lawang, a small village on the slopes of gunung bromo, was a long one, not helped by the fact that our minivan (ac must be bahasa for outrageously hot) kept breaking down: you have to admire the audacity of a man who is holding a handful of electrical cables, yanked from behind the dashboard, in his hand as we stagnate by the roadside, yet still can grin back at his passengers and continually repeat, without a hint of irony, 'no problem, no problem'. by the time we arrived it was 10pm, and cemero was fast asleep for the night.the fun didn't end there: this was the friday night after id ul mubarrak, and swarms of holidaying indonesians had descended on the village, and its paltry four guesthouses. rooms were scarce, and hilariously overpriced. by the time i staggered into my grotty little bed, having got the price down to $5 for a room that wasn't really fit for occupation (in lonely planet lexicon, 'homely' means fleapit) it was nearly 11.30, and i was shattered.
my two hours sleep didn't really seem like much when i got up at 2am for my hike to the top of gunung penanjankan, a volcano overlooking bromo. most people get jeeps, but i like my morning walks so i set off in the pitch black. the lack of moonlight from the thin sliver in the sky meant i was blessed with a glorious canopy of stars above: it also meant that the climb, tricky enough as it is, was remarkably hazardous by the light of my $1 cambodian torch. still, i was feeling pretty happy when the track spat me out onto the road just below the summit two hours later: my mood was immediately darkened however by the scene that confronted me. the joy of an arduous sunrise hike is that few people can be bothered to replicate your efforts, and you can enjoy the sunrise in blissful serenity... unless there is an easy, jeep option, in which case the place is rammed with people, none of whom have made any effort to get there, and can't appreciate your need for some peace and reflection. bloody tourists.
despite this however, the sunrise was amazing... as the area gradually lightens you look down onto a huge flat lava plain, from which rises two volcanoes, both overlooked by the huge, smoking, gunung seneru in the background. beneath this view are decks of white clouds, a sign of how high you are, slowly illuminated by the rising sun. an awesome, almost prehistoric, landscape, that not even the hordes behind me could ruin. the hike back was glorious too: stunning views around every corner. i hadn't even been able to see the outlines of these imposing peaks on the way up, which just shows how dark it had been. i arrived back at about 8am, and made arrangements for the journey to bali. i may return on my way back to java next month when hopefully it will be a lot quieter.
it took along time to get to kuta beach, a journey invloving hilariously cramped public buses, one of which i almost tumbled out of when i fell asleep in my seat right by the open door, and ferries, and by the time i arrived at midnight i was dying of fatigue. i don't really like the place: it's too full of people, basically an australian tenerife, english football and burgers. still, i need to rest a bit after last week, which got pretty strenuous, and it's the best place to sort out travel tickets, so i'm going to vegetate here for a few days before heading east to a truer indonesia.
posted by bicrom @ 8:40 am
<< Home