Mount Bromo and Ijen were two volcanoes high on Rob’s list for places to see while in Java, Indonesia. We had originally booked all our own hotels but figuring out transportation between places proved to be a little daunting. They are both in pretty remote areas about a seven hour drive away from each other. We found a three day / two night tour package online that covered what we wanted to see and included a private driver for the entire time as well as booking all of the hotels for a reasonable price so we went for it. The tour company also helped us with buying train tickets in advance to Surabaya, a five-hour train ride from Yogyakarta. The night before our tour was set to start, the tour company sent me a WhatsApp message saying Ijen would be closed on the day we were scheduled to visit. We later learned that Ijen is regularly closed on the first Friday of the month for cleaning so I have no idea why the tour company let us know so late in the game. As a result we started the tour a day late and spent an unplanned night at a pretty nice high-rise hotel in the city of Surabaya at our own expense, which was not terrible. Surabaya was a rather pleasant and clean city and we enjoyed our brief stay there.
Madakaripura Waterfall
Our driver picked us up in Surabaya at 10:00 am and we were on our way. Since it was only a three hour drive to the town of Probolinggo where our hotel for the night was, our driver suggested we stop and check out Madakaripura Waterfall on the way. We had not heard of it but thought that sounded fun. When we arrived we paid around $14 each, which included transportation on scooters to the trail head and a local guide to accompany us the whole way. We were told to bring rain jackets if we had them.
The hike to the falls took around thirty minutes. Once we reached the falls area we put on our raincoats before wading through knee deep water and climbing a series of rocky paths. When we reached the falls area we were blown away by what we saw. It was a truly stunning canyon with falls as high as 650 feet. The walls of the canyon were covered in lush green plants. We walked through the mist from the falls and our guide, who seemed to know all the good spots, took photos for us. A pool of clear blue water can be found at the base of one section of the waterfall and we saw a few brave souls go for a swim in the cool clear water. This has to be one of the most beautiful waterfalls I have ever seen and I have seen many. There was just something very special about hiking to this spot within the forest that we knew nothing about ahead of time. It was a wonderful surprise and really made our day.
After the waterfall we grabbed a pleasant lunch at a local warung (the name for a small family run restaurant in Indonesia) and then went to our hotel to check in. We were scheduled to depart the hotel at 2:00 am for our Mount Bromo tour so we skipped dinner and tried to go to bed early.
Mount Bromo
Mount Bromo is an active volcano in East Java, Indonesia. It is a popular activity with locals and foreigners alike to wake up early and hike to a vantage point to watch the sunrise over the volcano. Due to being disturbed all night by a mouse in our room, we unfortunately were not able to get any sleep at the hotel, so we set out at 2:00 am with our guide tired and running on fumes. We drove about 45 minutes with our guide to a meeting point where we were transferred to a jeep 4×4 with a different driver. The road up to the vantage point was much too bumpy and rough for a regular vehicle. I should mention that there were hundreds of other jeeps doing the exact same thing so we had to park pretty far from the vantage point and hike up the mountain in the cold and the dark. There are quite a few food and beverage stalls along the road as well as entrepreneurs renting out jackets to those who came unprepared for the bitter cold and wind.
After stopping at a stall for some coffee, we reached the vantage point at around 4:30 am with our guide. We waited in the spot he picked for us to watch the sunrise along with what I would guess were at least a few hundred other people. As the sun rose you could see the mountains peek out of the sea of clouds.
The real show-stopper though was the view of Mount Bromo itself. It was so beautiful it almost looked unreal. Below is a photo that is not edited at all. With so many people it was a little chaotic and if I was able to do it over again I might have gone later in day to enjoy this magnificent sight without the distraction of so many other people being there but it was a once in a lifetime view.
After the sunrise we went to check out the volcano area up close. Usually people are able to hike all the way up the crater. Mount Bromo actually erupted about a week before our visit, so for safety reasons the area in a one kilometer radius around the crater was closed off at the time we visited. Therefore, we were only able to walk to the edge of the trail that leads to the crater. There were locals offering horse rides across what was only a twenty minute walk through a dusty area of volcanic sand called the “Sea of Sand,” but we were fine with walking.
After we finished viewing the volcano this part of our tour concluded. We headed back to our hotel to eat breakfast and shower before the seven hour drive to our hotel in Banyuwangi, which was to be our home base for the Ijen portion of the tour.
Ijen Volcano
We arrived at our hotel in Banyuwangi around 6:00 pm and it was a refreshingly nice property and huge step up from the place we stayed in the night prior. The hotel had a lovely restaurant on-site where we enjoyed a nice dinner and then headed to our room to get some sleep. By this point I was feeling like a zombie due to lack of sleep so made the decision to not get up at 1:00 am for the upcoming Ijen tour and let Rob enjoy that adventure on his own with our guide. I had a nice clean hotel room with a comfy bed and that was where I wanted to stay to catch up on sleep.
Ijen is a volcano that contains the world’s largest acidic volcanic crater lake, called Kawah Ijen, famous for its turquoise color. The active crater is known for its rich sulfur deposits and there is a working sulfur mine at Ijen. At 1:00 am Rob went off to meet our guide for the Ijen Crater Tour. The reason the tour started so early is because the goal is to hike down into the crater while it is still dark outside to witness the natural phenomenon known as the “blue flame,” an electric-blue flame that appears from the combustion of sulfuric gases. When hiking into the crater, wearing a gas mask is required as the fumes are highly toxic and also quite smelly. Rob borrowed some pants from our guide and rented a jacket to wear so that his clothes would not get contaminated with the sulfur smell.
Rob thoroughly enjoyed this adventure and we are both glad he experienced it. I thought it sounded a bit dangerous so I was glad he came back in one piece. Below are some of his photos from the tour and they are pretty amazing. I would have loved to see the crater lake, which sounded a little less treacherous than hiking into the crater in the dark wearing a gas mask.
From our Banyuwangi hotel our driver took us to the port to catch the ferry over to Bali. We said our goodbyes and thanked him for getting us everywhere safely and efficiently. We took the one-hour ferry to Bali where another driver picked us up and drove us about four hours to our next destination, which was Ubud, a place I was really looking forward to thanks to its reputation for plentiful healthy restaurants, scenic rice plantations, and yoga studios.
Beautiful pictures and account of the tour. Loving it!