After heading out of Derawan Islands we decided to stay sleep deprived and do a sunrise tour of mount Bromo. We made the decision as the weather was looking good (typical Brit style checking the weather). It takes five hours to reach the mountain from Surabaya, the nearest airport (which we had to go to anyway to get from Derawan to Komodo, our next stop) . A typical Mount Bromo tour consists of viewing the sun rise over it, and then going all the way up to the crater. It takes four hours to drive there and then one hour to hike so was going to be a long day as we had to get back as well.
Indonesia is part of the Pacific Ring of fire, with no less than 127 active volcanoes. But it is Mount Bromo we would be going to. At 2328 meters, this isn’t the highest peak of Indonesia but it’s the most well known volcano for its beauty.
The sunrise
The best viewpoint to see the sunrise over Mount Bromo is that of Mount Penanjakan. The jeep will drop you off as close as possible to the entrance to the park, from where they have to walk all the way to the viewpoint which is about twenty minutes.
For us visiting Mount Bromo was a last minute call and we completely forgot to wear warm clothes *face palm*. Though it hardly ever gets cold in Indonesia, the area is at quite an elevation and as soon as we got out the jeep and saw everyone in hats, gloves and coats our immediate thought was why didn’t we wear warm clothes. Luckily, before we set off to the sunrise point our guide rented us coats for the cool price of £1 each, which saved us as we felt really cold, especially waiting for the sunrise for a good 30 minutes. Finally after freezing outside in the cold the sun finally came up and we managed to catch a pretty good sunrise.
Next stop the crater
The walk to the crater isn’t hard as it’s 40 minutes from the sunrise point. Once you climb the ladder of stairs it’s so impressive to look down the crater and see smoke coming out of it!
We have never been so close to the crater of an active volcano before. Looking down the crater is a thrilling experience and we even asked the guide whether anyone has fallen in but no one has as of yet. Luckily we made three months of the trip without pushing one another in yet.