August 11, Saturday

August 11, Saturday

Such a PAINFUL day today; in so many ways.  I did not have much choice in the matter; I dragged myself out of bed at 1:50 am and was at the mini-van ready to go at 2 am for our drive from Kalibaru to Banyuwangi.   I can’t sleep in a moving vehicle, so although I tried to close my eyes a few times, nausea would make me open my eyes again.  We arrived in time for the switch in vehicles in Banyuwangi:  HUGE 4 wheel drive Land Rover.  What a difference from the jeep at Mount Bromo.  This one had comfortable cushiony leather seats.  Good thing because the road up the mountain was definitely for 4-wheel drive vehicles only; others need not apply!  We were definitely climbing a mountain, and a steep one at that.  Even with the comfortable seats, the ride was excruciatingly bumpy.  My back was killing me by the time we arrived at the top where we would be leaving the vehicle and climbing up the rest of the way on foot. 

It was pitch black when we left the hotel; it started lightening up mid way up the mountain. At some point during the drive up the mountain day light gradually appeared.  I did not check my watch to see what time it was when we started up the path, so I don’t know how long it took me to get up there. I usually rely on my photos to give me an approximate time, but I didn't have the camera .... so!   The notes I had been given simply said “begin the 1.5 hour hike up to the crater”; there was no mention of the fact that it was a 3 km hike up a very slippery trail, nor did it mention how steep the trail was nor how high we would be climbing.   It was full of tiny rocks that would act as ball bearings under my feel.  The climb up was endless and STEEP.  I had my walking sticks and would not have made it up without them.  I almost turned back a few times because neither my lungs nor my legs wanted to cooperate. 

On the climb up Mount Ijen to view the famous crater, we passed the miners carrying empty baskets up the mountain and full baskets of sulphur on the way down.  YVETTE:  Do you remember watching “Pekin Express” where the competitors had to climb this very same trail and carry the baskets of sulphur to the weighing area?  I remembered that one of the women actually sat down and cried before she even reached the top of the crater; I felt like doing the same thing.   Well I did sit down a few times, but I didn’t cry.  I persevered however and made it to the top.  From 1,800 meters Above Sea Level where we left the vehicle to 2,400 meters on the rim of the crater; that's a 600 meter climb.  Although I had prepared my bag that morning in preparation for the climb, somehow my camera did not make it, but I did have my camcorder however so I managed to film some of the scenery, and Daniel took pictures of me with Dodi’s new camera. He promised to send them to me so I gave him my email address.(Nothing received unfortunately.)   {I thought my camera might have fallen out of my bag during the steep ride up the mountain, but it wasn't in the jeep when we got back.  I found it later in my purse.... which I had left in Dodi's vehicle since I would not be needing it for the climb !}

Here are some pics from someone else’s blog:  “It seems like a short distance, only 3 km to the crater’s edge. On level ground one could walk the distance in half an hour. But one also has to gain 536m in altitude.  About 1 km of the path is almost level, therefore it must be steep indeed where it rises.”

This would have been a picture of me climbing the first part of the wide path with my walking sticks.

 This is the weighing station, a bit more than half way up to the rim. The baskets are yoked together and carried over their shoulders.


This is the flatter part of the narrower trail, the last kilometer, with a gradual gradiant that was easier to climb.

 And this is pretty much what I saw when I got to the rim.  The only difference was that the breeze was in the other direction blowing the smoke from the crater to the left.
Did I mention that I had not eaten yet? By the time I reached the rim of the crater my blood sugar levels had crashed, and so did I. I just sat down on the solid lava flows (exactly like you see in the above photo), just beside the path, on the rim of the crater and ate two slices of plain white bread that the hotel in Kalibaru considered to be a “breakfast” package, and drank my water. Still, I was extremely happy to have carried it up all that distance because it made a big difference. I still had a "short" distance to trek to be able to get a view of the sulphur near the boiling crater lake, and passersby were encouraging me to keep going because the view was worthwhile. With Daniels help, I was able to stand up again and keep going.

Once you reach the rim, you can walk a good portion of the way around it.  See the person with the green sweater?  Just above his left shoulder you can see a spek of a person (tiny black spot) in the rocks.  That's about as far as I walked before turning back.  
BUT IT WAS DEFINITELY WORTH THE CLIMB.    OH MY GOD !

The lake within the crater.
The Ijen volcano complex is a group of stratovolcanoes, in East Java, Indonesia. It is inside a larger caldera Ijen, which is about 20 kilometers wide. The Gunung Merapi stratovolcano is the highest point of that complex. {The name of this volcano resembles that of a different volcano, Mount Merapi in central Java, also known as Gunung Merapi; there is also a third volcano named Marapi in Sumatra.} The name "Merapi" means "fire" in the Indonesian language.

West of Gunung Merapi is the Ijen volcano, which has a one-kilometer-wide turquoise-colored acid crater lake. The lake is the site of a labor-intensive sulfur mining operation, in which sulfur-laden baskets are carried by hand from the crater floor   Elevation 2,799 meters or 9,183 feet.

The active crater at Kawah Ijen has an equivalent radius of 361 metres (1,184 ft), a surface of 0.41 square kilometres (0.16 sq mi). It is 200 metres (660 ft) deep and has a volume of 36 cubic hectometres (29,000 acre·ft).   

 Beautiful shots with my camcorder.  Incredibly HUGE crater.  These poor miners work incredibly hard.  Not only to they climb what I did twice a day, they go down into the crater from where we stood, cut up some slabs of sulfur, place it into a double basket (like an oxen yoke) and carry 80+ kilos back up to the rim of the crater and then down the same slippery slope trail we had just climbed.  Amazingly strong for such small men and old before their time.  Most were wearing rubber boots, but I saw one man who looked very old (but wasn’t) wearing flip flops while carrying his huge load.  At one point while going down the mountain (around the 2 km marker) their full baskets are weighed and recorded; they get paid by the weight of the sulfur they carry down the volcanic mountain. “The miners break the cooled material into large pieces and carry it away in baskets. Miners must carry loads, which range from 75 kilograms (170 lb) to 90 kilograms (200 lb), up 300 metres (980 ft) to the crater rim, with a gradient of 45 to 60 degrees and then 3 kilometers (1.86 miles) down the mountain for weighing. Most miners make this journey twice a day. The work is low-paid and very onerous. Workers earn around $5.50-$8.30 (Rp 50,000 - Rp 75,000) per day and once out of the crater, still need to carry their loads of sulfur chunks about three kilometers to the nearby Pultuding valley to get paid.”

I stayed up at the top only long enough to film and then started back down the trail at 7:50 am.  Although I used my walking sticks as brakes, I still slipped and fell twice, injuring my left ankle.  There were people around me (those going up and those going down) who stopped to help and ensure I was OK.  Extremely considerate.  The first time I fell I needed help getting back up and was led to the side of the trail where I could sit and catch my breath. I thought I had sprained my ankle, but within a few minutes I was good to go. The second time I fell I managed to get back up with Daniels help, but my ankle did not feel good at all.  I was trying to place my weight on my walking sticks rather than on my left foot, but if I did not step heavily enough, my feet would slip again on the ball bearing pebbles.  How in hell do the miners manage to keep from slipping when all they are wearing are rubber boots?  Maybe the weight they are carrying helps somehow. 

It was 9:10 by the time I made it back to the jeep; a lot longer than I thought it would have taken me, but I was limping badly by the time I collapsed into the jeep.  The drive back down the mountain and back to the hotel where I would be staying in Banyuwangi seemed to take forever.  I was exhausted, I was filthy from the falls and all I wanted to do was take a shower and crawl into bed; which is exactly what I did when I finally got the key to my room.

Beautiful hotel by the way, the Ketapang Indah Hotel is brand new and has beautiful grounds and a lovely pool.

 My room

 The grounds

 The pool area

By mid afternoon I made my way down for a nice relaxing swim, which did wonders for my ankle, but where I discovered that I had also injured my knee and swimming was NOT helping it at all. I had just sat down in a lounger, hoping to take in some late afternoon sunshine when the clouds moved in. Oh well, I went back to my room, showered one more time and called it a day.

PS -  A mystery solved.

In almost all the hotel rooms where I stayed, there would be an arrow, somewhere on the ceiling, pointing to a corner of the room.  Never any explanations and I often wondered what it was for.   Well, in this hotel, the arrow had a word printed on it.

It's pointing towards Mecca ! ! !    Duh !     It makes so much sense once you know what it's for.

{Bruno:   De big red truck !}