Igen

From Igen

After several hours of travelling though East Java from Mt. Bromo, often over very rough roads, we reached our destination for the next day’s outing: the Igen volcano. We were staying in an old coffee plantation house, which was in the centre of a working coffee plantation, owned and run by the Indonesian government (presumably repossessed from the Dutch after independence). Unfortunately this turned out to be one of the worst hotels I have stayed in on this or indeed any other trip.

We ended the afternoon with a visit to a hot waterfall, heated by the volcano, and bathed in a hot spring. This was possibly the highlight of the evening. From then on things got progressively worse. I was scheduled to participate in a work conference call that evening and settled down in the lounge to receive my call. This was interrupted as a throng of Muslim worshippers filed into a next-door room and proceeded to hold their evening prayer meeting – very loudly. I had to retreat to my room and continue the call standing on a chair so that I could still get a decent cell phone signal. Then it was dinner time, but when we were shown to our table we found that our food had been served about half an hour previously and was now cold. I suspect that it would have been pretty mediocre even when hot. After a beer by the pool (so you want a glass with that?), it was time for an early night in readiness for another 6am wake-up. We did not realise then just how early that would be. Back in the bedroom I found the bed covered in dead bugs, which had to be swept off the damp bedding before I could get into bed. Trying to get to sleep was difficult as the internal and external walls were literally paper thin – made from a single layer of woven palm fronds. I could hear someone snoring (not me for change) at least two rooms away. When a van drew up outside, it sounded like it was parking in the bedroom. I must have gone to sleep at some stage, because the next thing I knew, there was an awful wailing sound coming from just outside the room. Turned out to be the call to morning prayer from the village mosque, AT 4 AM!!! I was just about ready to go and punch someone in the face, when I remembered my noise cancelling headphones. Got these out of my bag, plugged in my iPod, and switched on some soothing music. This successfully blotted out the sound of the wailing worshippers, and I was able to get a bit more sleep before the alarm went at 6am. After a pitiful breakfast, we headed for the Igen crater.

The walk to the top of the crater was about 4.5km. On the way we passed a number of men coming down the track carrying what looked like chunks of yellow foam rubber in baskets slung over their shoulders. On closer inspection we realised that these were in fact large chunks of pure sulphur that they had mined from within the crater. Half way up the mountain we came to a weighing station where the miners have their loads weighed in order to assess the payment they will receive when they reach the bottom. We had the opportunity to try to lift a typical miner’s load. These weigh in at about 75kg, and I can assure you that they are very hard to lift, let alone walk up the rocky slopes of the inside of the crater and then down the track to the foot of the mountain. And they do this run twice a day, wearing flip-flops and chain smoking roll-ups!

At the top of the crater rim the lake was mostly obscured by early morning cloud. However we could see and smell the sulphurous cloud of smoke emerging from the vent at the heart of the crater. The walk down to the floor of the crater was rather steep and treacherous but we got down without mishap, passing several miners toiling up with their heavy loads of sulphur. The sight at the bottom was like something out of a medieval illustration of hell. The sulphur gas from the volcano’s vent was being channelled out of numerous man-made pipes and condensing as a solid yellow deposit. Slabs of this sulphur were being hacked off by the miners and moved to wicker baskets, ready to be carried back up the crater. Every so often, the wind would change direction, and the gas would engulf the miners, so they would have to move rapidly to the other side of the vent to prevent choking. This must rate as one of the worst jobs in the world.

Before we made our way back up the crater, we noticed that the wind had cleared the clouds away and we could get a good view of the extraordinary crater lake. This is a strange turquoise blue colour, due to the high acid content. Apparently it is one of the most acidic lakes in the world. The climb back up was to some extent easier than going down, and we almost ran down the outside of the mountain, arriving at the village café for a well deserved coffee and banana fritters.

All in all, a fantastic experience, making it well worth putting up with the inadequacies of the coffee plantation house of the previous night.