by Jamie Maslin
An almighty, earth-reverberating boom threw me into a frenzy of excitement as I made my way along a thin track compacted with thick wet ash. A few steps further and another rumble erupted, its sound wave passing through me. Suddenly the earth dropped away, exposing an expansive ash-covered valley below that stretched off into the distance. Standing proudly in the middle of it, a couple of miles away, was a partial cone, some 7,641 feet high, the top blown clean off revealing a cavernous crater within. Billowing violently from here was the eruption cloud; it was mighty Mt. Bromo in all her glory. To her right flank stood Mt. Batok, the quintessential perfect mountain, a symmetrical cone of 8,103 feet with deep ribs running down her sides; and behind them both, providing the perfect background to a wondrous scene, was a taller distant mountain, another perfect cone and active volcano, Mt. Semeru, the highest peak on Java at 12,060 feet.
An explosion erupted from within Bromo, throwing debris skyward. Just how safe was it here at the moment? Days earlier I had seen footage on television of residents being evacuated from the vicinity around another one of Indonesia’s mighty volcanoes. At what stage would Mt. Bromo warrant the same precautions? I watched engrossed until nighttime fell, then decided on a closer look.
Walking along a darkened trail of slushy ash that led southward from the village, I arrived at the lava viewing area, situated on the rim of the giant valley in which Bromo sat—actually a ten mile wide caldera, that is, a vast, cauldron-shaped depression in the earth formed by the collapse of land following a volcanic eruption. I had the spot to myself. For the first few minutes there was nothing visible in the dark beyond a faint brown-tinged glow coming from the distant base of Bromo, where the volcanic cloud spewed into the cold night air. Then it began. Exploding from the earth’s depths, showers of deep-red molten matter shot upward in arcing trails that careered down Bromo’s sides. Seconds later, the eruption’s sound-wave hit me. I stood for a couple of hours, mesmerized as jets of lava greeted the night. Every so often the occasional streak of lightning joined the fray, scurrying from ash-cloud to ground, bringing forth vivid colors of incandescent white, blue and purple, as it released its pent up charge. It was one of the most captivating sights I’ve ever seen.
Lifting my jaw up off the ground, I headed back to the village. Strolling down the street was another Westerner about my age.
“How’s it going?” I asked, in the hope of striking up a conversation with a potential English speaker.
“Good thanks,” came the reply in a thick Dutch accent.
He introduced himself as Wim—pronounced “Vim”—who, it turned out, was doing a very similar trip to mine. Starting off in Sydney, Wim had traveled overland to Darwin where he flew to Indonesia, and was now making his way home to the Netherlands, a trip he had allocated a year to complete. It was time he might well need—he was cycling it!
Wim was hitting the sack soon; an alarm call beckoned for him at 4 a.m., set so he could complete a two hour hike to a scenic lookout on nearby Mt. Penanjakan, a popular spot to watch the sunrise from and take in its panoramic views of Mt. Bromo and the sounding area.
“You should come along,” he suggested.
I agreed, and after arranging to meet outside my hotel at 4:15 a.m., I headed in to get my head down.
* * *
A soft dawn light diffused by a cool morning mist crept across the horizon, slowly revealing a ghostly panorama that could have been on another planet. Far off below lay the giant valley floor of the Tengger caldera, its towering cliffs reaching down to a sea-like swathe of black volcanic sand. Standing in the middle was Mt. Bromo, as active as ever. Blown by a brisk morning wind, her ever-changing eruption cloud drifted for a mile or so just above the caldera’s floor, before climbing thousands of feet into the air. In front and to her right was the noble-looking cone of Mt. Batok, and in the distance, many miles away, Mt. Semeru.
Wim and I stared out at the classic picture-postcard shot of Java, often reproduced from Mt. Penanjakan’s lookout; but with one notable exception. Normally captured is a quaint Mt. Bromo, emitting a gentle whisper of white gas into the still morning air; but that wasn’t the case today. Bromo was enraged, hurling rocks the size of houses hundreds of feet up and spewing thick noxious fumes into the atmosphere, painting the air a dense dark gray for miles around. We were tremendously lucky to catch Bromo at her best, and she made for some fantastic photos.
Sharing the scenic lookout with us were a handful of other tourists who were doing the rounds swapping cameras to get a once in a lifetime photo of themselves against such an incredible backdrop. Staying behind long after everyone else had departed, Wim and I remained spellbound, watching Bromo’s fluctuating mood unfold before us.
“Can you see that motorbike?” asked Wim, pointing down at the tiny figure of a lone rider transporting a bundled-up cargo of plant matter on the back of his bike, who was skirting along next to one of the towering valley walls at the bottom of the huge caldera in which Mt. Bromo sat.
“Apparently there’s another track that leads from the village to Jemplang,” said Wim.
This was currently invisible from our location high up Mt. Penanjakan, but Wim pointed out the rough route of the track. It went from near the lava viewing area, down the huge cliff wall of the caldera to its floor below, where it led towards an area directly under the volcanic cloud, which was currently depositing a hazy rain of ash.
“I’m thinking of cycling it,” he added.
Wow. This was ballsy, if not foolhardy.
An exclusion zone was currently enforced around Bromo, which meant the entire caldera valley in which Mt. Bromo and Mt. Batok sat was strictly off limits. The local on the bike had broken this, but had done so along a different trail, far from Bromo herself, somewhere the track Wim was suggesting would end up pretty damn close to.
“Fancy coming along?” he asked.
My initial reaction, at least to myself, was a resounding, “No chance!” But when Wim explained that the village of Jemplang was located only seven and a half miles beyond Bromo, and that from there the track continued due west to the city of Malang, I began to consider it. This would cut out a hell of a lot of back-tracking, which, if I didn’t come along, would be necessary in order to reach a distant road that skirted around the mountains in a big time-consuming loop.
Looking down at Bromo, I wondered if it was doable. I would need another local on a motorbike to do it, but whether any were using this particular track, and how frequently, I didn’t know. To go so close to an active volcano while it was erupting was likely an opportunity I would never get again, but would it kill me? I had seen plenty of explosions throw material upwards but none had cast this particularly far outwards, in the sense of it reaching a long way beyond Bromo’s flanks; and so, unless she came out with a big one while I was nearby, I figured I should survive.
“Okay then,” I said to Wim, hardly believing the words coming out of my mouth, “I’m up for it.”
Back in the village we stopped off at a small official national park office to confirm that the caldera and track was closed. I’m not sure what prompted us to do this. Maybe it was in the vain hope that the official there would tell us that although the exclusion zone was indeed in force, it was actually an over cautious bureaucratic response to the eruption, and, in fact, the route we wanted to travel was quite safe.
He told us the opposite.
We told him nothing of our intentions of venturing along it anyway.
A quick pit stop at my hotel to collect my backpack, and at Wim’s so he could get his bike, and we set off, making our way along the beginnings of a bumpy road that led from the village to the edge of the caldera’s cliff. Straddling the road at the top of the cliff was a chunky metal barrier, blocking access—at least for Jeeps and the like—to the exclusion zone of the caldera’s floor below, which the road led steeply down to. We slipped around the barrier, Wim coasting down the annoyingly angled road, leaving me to walk it solo towards the sea of black sand-l
ike ash at its base. With every heavy footstep my heart pounded harder and my adrenaline elevated, racing around my veins as the raw and unrestrained power of Bromo grew closer, until I was no longer looking down on her but up.
If ever somewhere could be described as a moonscape, then the caldera’s belly was it. A desolate world of dark ash blanketed the expanse that stretched before me, from which Bromo’s shattered cone rose, a little too close. Huge quantities of dark matter spewed into the air, as great sheet-like offerings fell across the area we planned to travel. There was zero sign of any track. It was without doubt the craziest place I have ever stood waiting for a ride.
Sometimes when hitching you can be in what is theoretically a great spot to wait, but for whatever reason no one stops. Other times you can be in what on paper is a ridiculous place to hail a ride but you strike it lucky and one materializes. There was no doubt which of the two I was in today, but was I feeling lucky?
I walked over to Wim, who stood nearby taking photos. We took a couple of each other, and then, with little further ado, he wished me well and set off.
Sitting on my backpack, I watched as he struggled to ride in the conditions. In less than a minute he had given up, and was pushing his bike through the sludge, getting closer to the volcanic cloud, which descended, every so often, to just above ground level, threatening to envelop him. Sitting here, I really didn’t think I would get a ride. I foresaw a demoralizing trek back up the caldera’s cliff face and a protracted detour along roads I’d hitchhiked the day before.
Soon Wim had disappeared from sight into the abyss.
Bromo let out a groaning rumble that cast huge rocks into the air.
“Bloody hell!” I said out loud, feeling more than a little too close for comfort.
The sand-covered caldera floor felt like Bromo’s domain and I was trespassing.
Ten minutes later it happened: an amazing stroke of luck; a local on a motorbike slowly made his way down the steep cliff-face road to the caldera floor, and on reaching it set off in my general direction. I frantically waved him over. The rider was a middle-aged man with a big cheesy smile and a set of teeth so gap ridden he could have flossed with a skipping rope. He spoke no English, and so to establish where he was going I employed the medium of sign—after considering contemporary dance but then discounting it. A few additional utterances of the village name I was heading to (Jemplang) and I achieved the task. Not only was he going there, but, more importantly, was willing to take me. I could have jumped for joy. Clambering on the back of the bike, I sucked a deep breath into my lungs and held on tight.
It was tough going across the ash, and the bike struggled from the outset with the back tire sinking from the additional weight in the deep sand-like conditions. Perching on the back was a surreal experience. I was hitchhiking across a sea of ash with an erupting volcano to my immediate right, the morphing cloud from which approached like some mythical beast getting ready to swallow us whole. Our world began to darken as the cloud came in around us, skimming our heads to the point where I could feel its warmth. Debris started falling from the sky, a torrent of sand-like particles, only far chunkier, leaving a sting on my exposed legs and arms, like being lashed by a sandstorm in a desert. I pulled the thin rolled-up sleeves of my sweater down to minimise the effect. My local comrade had wisely come prepared, wearing a chunky jacket and a helmet with a visor.
The downfall’s ferocity intensified, severely diminishing visibility and forcing me to screw up my eyes and angle my face towards the ground so that the back of my helmet took the brunt—amplifying the falling debris’ sound around my head until it resembled TV static with the volume up. We plowed deeper into the storm until a pocket of loose silt thwarted our advances. Clambering off, we began trudging through a hail of falling grit, grappling with the bike as if forcing a reluctant animal forwards against its will.
Bromo groaned.
Through squinting eyes, I looked out across the bizarre downpour of dry and solid rain, at a near biblical vision of Armageddon, a literal world of fire and brimstone. I smiled. Both with incredulity and contentment. Incredulous at the insanity of my reality at this precise moment, and content that I was here, living on the edge, as far as I could get from the repetitive doldrums of normal life that had so frequently imprisoned me at home. Such desperate mediocrity seemed a universe away now; I could feel the overwhelming power of nature reverberating beneath my feet and all around me, affirming my existence and energizing my being with a feeling of complete exhilaration, to the point where I felt likely to burst at the seams. I let out a war cry, muffled almost immediately by the sound of slashing silt, but which thundered in my heart.
When the terrain allowed, we resumed our passage through shrouded oblivion, until, suddenly, we burst through to the other side. We had entered the promised land. Ahead lay an expanse of sunshine amid a green and pleasant world. Rising up the immense sheer cliff-face of the caldera’s southern side, which protruded skyward by nearly a thousand feet, was lush vegetation. The cliff curved in an arc to the right, where it formed part of a narrower gorge—made up by the cliff itself and a giant internal ridge jutting up inside the caldera. A muddy track became visible ahead, and soon after a familiar figure cycling along it. As we got within earshot I called out to Wim. Turning around, he looked at me in shock.
“I didn’t think I’d see you again!” exclaimed Wim as my lift pulled over beside him so we could chat.
“Me neither,” I replied. “I didn’t think I had a hope in hell of getting a ride.”
For the next few minutes we swapped notes on our experiences beneath the volcanic cloud, before my motorcycle captain finally indicated it was time to wrap things up. I wished Wim well, and before I knew it he had disappeared from sight behind me.
As we made our way into the gorge along a twisting, partially waterlogged, track, I looked back towards a dichotomy of sky. To the west stretched a perfect unblemished blue, to the east a frenzy of dirty gray and brown that looked like the fallout from a nuclear explosion. It wasn’t long before the last signs of Bromo had disappeared from sight behind the gorge’s towering walls. The further we traveled the more serene it became. Lining the gorge’s lower reaches were purple-petaled wild flowers, gently swaying long grasses, dense clumps of bracken and princely-looking plants with ripe clusters of umbellifers.
When the track reached the caldera’s southwestern wall it began to climb, meandering though sparsely wooded terrain until the summit, where it formed something resembling a road; forking now in two directions. A couple of little huts with odd two-tiered roofs stood here, as did what appeared to be a forest fire lookout tower. This, my lift indicated, was where we departed. He was continuing left whereas I needed right. I thanked him for an unforgettable ride and set off on foot. Ten minutes into my walk, two scooters approached from behind—one carrying two girls in headscarves, the other ridden by a lone male. Without any request from me to do so, they all pulled over.
“Can I have my photo taken with you?” asked the girl riding on the back of the bike.
“Sure.”
I posed for a couple of shots with her.
“Can we become friends on Facebook?” she asked.
I agreed, and gave her my name so she could look me up; hers was Farah.
By way of thanks, Farah got her male friend to give me a lift to the beginnings of the next little village, a place called Ngadas, about a mile and a half down the road. Situated on top of a ridge with steep inclines on either side, Ngadas was perched between two separate valleys, the combined sides forming a W-like shape, with the village on the middle peak. Running down all four slopes and stretching into the distance were fields of vegetables, laid out in neat patches on the super steep terrain, leaving the landscape resembling a quilt.
We stopped on the edge of Ngadas by another fork in the road. To the right it led upwards into the village; to the left the road went downhill, skirting around the settlement in the direction of Malang, about
thirty miles away. Situated nearby was a little food stall with a multicolored umbrella sticking out the top of it to shelter the food when it rained.
“Would you like some meatballs?” offered Farah.
I accepted.
From a big metal pot came three white bun-shaped forms that to me resembled anything but meatballs. To my eye they looked more like dim sum dumplings. These were placed into a little china bowl filled with a noodle soup that was ladled in from another metal pot. Reaching into my pocket I attempted to pay but Farah was having none of it and promptly thrust some money towards the guy running the stall.
“I am sorry but I have to go now,” she said, passing me my food. “It was nice to meet you.”
And with that she got onto the back of her friend’s scooter, waved me goodbye, and rode off into the village.
Standing next to the street stall was a grubby concrete rain shelter with an internal seating ledge where several other diners ate. I went inside and joined them. The food was curious, in a gritty kind of way that induced super cautious chewing, done out of fear of breaking a tooth on the durable foreign matter conjoined within the dumpling’s meaty core, which had to be inquisitively probed with the tongue, to winnow particles better suited to resurfacing a road from those theoretically digestible. I finished full, but not satisfied.
Stepping from the shelter’s shady interior, I emerged back into wondrous sunshine where a familiar voice greeted me.
“Jamie!”