Mt. Bromo

A couple weeks back, I was lucky enough to go with some friends in a rented car to Mt. Bromo.  It's actually 3 separate volcanoes, but Bromo is the most active of them, still spewing out sulfuric smoke into the air all day, every day.  The town we stayed in for the trip was nestled in the mountains, and crisp cool air and with some stunning scenery of mountainous ridges on either side.

The trip to Bromo starts with a 3 am wake up, followed by a 330 am drive in a jeep up the mountain.  As points the fog is so thick, our guide would get out of his car to see where we were, and we followed tons of other 4-wheel drive jeeps up the windy path to the viewpoint for sunrise.  As the sun was rising, you can start to make out the three distinct volcanoes, and see the steam rising from Bromo.  Luckily we were only 7 of 400 people who happened to go to the sinrise that morning, so we had to fight our way for views of the volcano.

The next part of the trip involved a drive down the mountain and across the sea of sand, a huge flat area surrounding the volcanoes that you slide and slip through on your jeep as he speeds along.  We even saw a couple motorcycles eat dirt, as they too were fighting against the sand.  You reach the bottom of the mountain to horses chasing your cars, and people asking if you want a ride up to the stairs of the mountain.  We walked, as it's not a hard or far walk...

You walk up the side for a while, and then go up 250 steps straight to the top of the crater, and you can look right down into the steam billowing out.  It's a pretty cool site.  The weekend ended with a stop at an unbelievably beautiful waterfall, one of the best I've ever seen, and a fun drive home.  It was a great weekend, and it's nice to know that there are good weekend trips available...