Mt. Bromo

This is the sunrise that we woke up at 3:30am to see. The star filled sky was more of a treat. Inge and I with the warm, cozy blanket.


One of the peaks at Bromo that has an eruption every 20 mins. We will climb up the smaller one in the foreground.


Inge and I had to squirm our way into position here for this great picture. We exchanged photographer jobs with people that were standing there so we could get in.


Here you can see the horses from above. Sorry I don't have a better picture but I was too busy laughing hysterically to take one of us actually on the midget horses/ponies whatever they are.


The actual crater with sulphuric gases emanating from the bottom.

Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock....argh...did I sleep for 5 minutes? Its. 3:30am. They tell me the jeeps are waiting and I assume I had the times wrong and everyone is waiting for me. I get up in a panic, use bathroom, brush teeth and go outside. Nothing. No car. No people. You know me, I start "people movin like molasses over here"....but I find a nice blanket, fuzzy, big, soft and decide it is perfect for wrapping around me like a giant shawl.
The jeeps arrive in a few minutes and we all climb in.
bonding blanket. We were talking and spoiling everyones view with our big red and white flower blanket. Locals rent parkas up the mountain and you can buy gloves, scarves and hats too. I really wanted a hot cocoa. When we got there it was really dark and full of people. We wondered where Madonna was since everyone was trying to squirm their way to the front like at a concert. We did a good job of securing a front row position for the sunrise and then shuffled our way to the other side to get a good look at the volcanos, there are 3 one that has an explosion every 20 mins and one that is gaseous which we climg later. After a while at the lookout we pile back into the jeeps and head into the giant ancient crater which is now called the sea of sand to climb Bromo. We come down again bouncing around uncontrollably which propels Inge and I into hysterical laughing being thrown around in the jeep with no "0h-shit" bars and the driver shifting gears on her thigh. We get into the sea of sand and start our indiaWe bounce around in the jeeps up the mountain when I start to see lots of jeeps parked and I tell inge and max there are going to be a lot of people at this "viewpoint". When we get out and start our trek in the dark Inge asks me if there is room for 2 under my blanket. Most of us weren't expecting this degree of cold (high 30s, low 40s) in the tropical island of Java. And so we share the blanket and become siamese twins for the next few hours. I later called it ourna jones race to the crater. sand kicking up from the other jeeps. It was really a scene out of a movie. We get there to find locals with what I call "midget horses" to take you 2km to the stairs of the volcano. No actual climbing through volcanic shree or anything like that. They want 100,000rp for each and we bargained for 2 horses for 100k ($10). Inge is really good at bargaining. We get on the ponies or midget horses. We get a branch to hit them with because your legs dangle down lower than their bodies and seeing myself and Inge who is a bit taller than me on these horses I just start laughing hysterically and my horse doesn't want to go where it is supposed to (I am laughing and hitting him and pulling the reins, poor thing). Finally I get the thing moving. Inge is telling the local "I want to do it, I know how" and I just keep laughing cause the guy just drags the horse and whacks him with the branch. We get up to the crater and it smells like a big rotten egg...sulfuric gas is spewing out of the volcano (this is common with gaseous semi-active volcanos). We don't walk around the crater as is advertised you can do because it looks really dangerous. We take pics and head down without horses this time.

We head back to the hotel, get our stuff and head back to Probolinggo to get in another bus for Bali.

Inge and Max outside the cafe of the hotel down the road from us waiting for the mini-bus to pick us up.

Indiana Jones style ride through the sea of sands: