Climbing Mount Bromo

Time has stopped. Knock knock. Why is there someone at the door? It's dark outside. Knock knock knock. Where are we? KNOCK KNOCK.

Ah, yes we're in Cemoro Lawang. It's 3:30am and since all three of our clocks have broken, we requested a wake up call (knock) before we climb Mount Bromo.

Yesterday was a long and arduous bus ride from Bali to a mountain town on the crater rim of the volcano we're about to climb. We have never seen our surroundings in daylight and we're leaving this town at 9:00am this morning. Sound crazy? Probably.

We're hustled into a jeep with two other tourists and together we huddle in the cold, dark night as our driver bumps and jerks our car up more mountains, more landscape we have never seen. We pull up to a string of souvenir shops and for the first time I feel content that there are other tourists here. Whew, we're not crazy.

Slowly the light begins to change and we see silhouettes of volcanos in the distance. Every few minutes a black cloud rises from one of the mountains and we realize that it's smoking. The sky turns a deep blue, then purple, then pinks, oranges and finally reds. There are four maybe five volcanoes in front of us surrounded by clouds and click click click go the cameras around me.

Mount Bromo and her sisters are a wonderful sight. Shrubs grow from grey volcanic rock and the whole area is covered in a dark, muddy soil. Once the sun was up we climbed the volcano, heaving our way through thin, wispy air and peering down into the crater with smoke billowing from the center. Click click click went the cameras around me.