Avet Vagari: A Smelly Hike to Hell

Java is an island covered in active

volcanoes. My plan for exploring the island, after several days of hopping over from Flores, was to head westward from the very east coast to Jakarta, fitting in as many hikes as possible on my way. When a friend said she was bored of the beach in Bali, I suggested she join me, and we agreed to meet at the ferry dock. After a travel mishap (a bus that took 14 hours instead of 6), I arrived a day late, but everyone got there in the end.

Banyuwangi, the dock on Java's

east coast, is also the jumping off point for Kawah Ijen, one of Java's more well-known volcanoes. Ijen is famous for the sulphur that wafts out of the crater, and the blue flames that are visible as the gases combust. It was something I definitely wanted to see, but information was scarce on how to visit without booking a tour. In the end, it wasn't too difficult.

The handful of guesthouses advertised online all seemed equally low quality and overpriced, so we chose one at random. They are mostly situated at various points along the road from Banyuwangi up to the trekking point at Pos Paltuding (there is, I learned later, one camp-style accommodation right at the Pos Paltuding checkpoint

, where the trek begins - if I were to return, I'd stay there). Our guesthouse was not too far from the village of Jambu, and I was able to convince a motorbike taxi to take me there all the way up there from Banyuwangi. I pulled up around 7 am (I was desperate to get out of the crummy hotel where I stayed in Banyuwangi and left more or less as soon as it was light). My friend was already there, so we had breakfast at the guesthouse, which was nice-ish and almost entirely empty. Since it was raining, we spent the morning in the chilly restaurant. Another guest showed up around 9 - he'd been to the mountain and back already. We were able to snag his jeep driver for the following morning (after a lengthy negotiation) to take us to the trekking point at 2 am (since the flames are only visible at night), then back to the guesthouse for breakfast and to collect our bags, and then back down to the bus terminal at Banyuwangi. Voila: Ijen without a tour!

Kawah Ijen

In the early afternoon, the rain turned to a light drizzle, so we decided to walk up the road a bit and see what we could find for lunch. We walked toward Pos Paltuding, enjoying the peacefulness of the mostly empty road, and the very green landscape along the mountainside. When it was becoming obvious that there was nothing to eat on the road, we turned around, headed back to the guesthouse. We noticed a small restaurant just beside the guesthouse, so agreed to eat there (they served only Indonesian meatball soup, but it was nice, at least, to have something warm). As we ate, we chatted with the owners - a woman, her husband, and their 20-something son - who spoke a fair amount of English and seemed delighted to have us (more perks of low season travel). When we'd finished, the woman asked if we wanted to pick rambutans. With nothing better to do, we agreed, and she sent us after her son, who led us to his rambutan trees, shimmied up one of them, and proceeded

to knock down several branches as we waited below, gathering them up. He then led us to his aunt's house, pointing out various fruit and coffee trees as we walked through the family's farm. His aunt invited us inside, so we sat down on her couch, eating the fruits he'd picked, and chatting about our travel plans. Then the son led us to another family member's house. This one was much smaller and had a mud floor, and several chickens wandering around (waiting, probably, to become nasi ayam). We were offered coffee, which turned out to be homemade from the family's coffee plants outside. It was delicious: a little spicy and very strong. When we'd finished, we decided to continue walking, and the son led us down the main road toward town. We walked through it, although there wasn't much more than a school and several tobacco plants. We saw signs for the "Java Banana Cafe and Gallery," which we thought seemed interesting enough, but when my friend said aloud that she wanted to go there, our guide's eyes widened in shock and he refused to go, saying that it was too far. We continued on without him, which he only allowed us to do once we'd agreed to stop by later (we never did... oops!). The gallery was indeed something of a walk through a neighborhood of very confused people asking where we'd come from, but it sat on top of a hill with a stunning view of Kawah Ijen draped in clouds

as the evening fog descended around it. The gallery itself was full of spectacular photographs of Javanese dancers, Kawah Ijen, and the port at Banyuwangi, a handful of sculptures, and (my favorites) Javanese shadow puppets, made of buffalo hide and hand painted in red and blue and gold. As it was starting to get dark, we headed back to the hostel, where we ate dinner and headed to bed early.

Baskets used by the miners to carry sulphur

The next morning our driver arrived at 2 am, and we headed up to the Pos Paltuding trekking point in his jeep. It was completely dark on the road, so we were relieved to find a decent sized group of hikers at the parking lot - we'd worried that we'd be the only ones. The first three kilometers were steep, and we were quickly out of breath. Mingling with the hikers were a handful of sulphur miners, on their way up to begin the day's work of gathering sulphur from the crater. The baskets hanging from the wooden poles that they balanced on their shoulders were empty on the way up, but they would soon be filled with some 100 pounds of sulphur. They were extremely friendly and chatty (especially for 3:00 in the morning) and happy to answer questions about their work, the crater, and the trail. It took us a little less than an hour to reach the weighing station, where we rested a few minutes to get our breath back before continuing up to the crater rim. This second leg of the hike was significantly less steep, as it wound back and forth around the mountain, but the sulphur from the crater started to bother our noses and throats. From the rim, we peered over, but could see very little beyond smoke billowing out from the crater. Up there, the gases were much stronger, and we tied our scarves around our mouths and noses (we'd been unable to procure masks beforehand). As we watched, one of the miners pointed out a faint blue glow - the blue flames we'd gotten up so early to see - but I was thinking, "is that all?" and feeling a bit disappointed. One of the miners offered to lead us down to the crater so we could see better, so we followed him (and the herds of tourists and miner guides) down the path. This part was by far the most difficult: the trail was steep and gravelly and hard to make out, and I had to stop several times to readjust my scarf to keep my nose covered. As we got closer the clouds

of gas rising from the cracks in the stone made the air not only uncomfortable, but difficult to breathe. Everyone was coughing and gagging - the only other sound was of the miners banging on the rock to break apart huge chunks of sulphur. The one miner we watched as he was working did wear a gas mask but he still had to stop work and turn away whenever a particularly violent gust of smoke washed over him (I read later that some of the miners collect masks that are discarded by tourists, but that the filters are usually old and the masks are therefore ineffective). From where I was standing, it was painful - I truly couldn't breathe when the gas hit us, and hid my face in the rock behind me. I thought I was going to vomit, or pass out, or cry, or all three. Once the smoke cleared, though, and we got our first real look at the blue flames, I was astonished: they were more than worth it. The blue was brighter and more dazzling even than I'd anticipated, and it was amazing to watch the flames rise up out of the rock. It was dark enough that they were the only light, and seemed just to appear out of nowhere. Eventually, desperately in need of fresh air I led the charge back up out of the crater (I was practically clawing my way out of there). We emerged beside the blue lake, and waited there for the sun to rise and the smoke to clear to get a good look at the color, which is the result of the high concentration of hydrochloric acid there. Around 6, we made our way back down, slowly, to admire the scenery we'd missed in the dark on the way up. There were several volcanoes visible beside Ijen - perfect cones with beautiful, rugged craters. One of them was actually rumbling, but apparently it's nothing to worry about. We returned to the hotel, had breakfast with our driver, and then drove down to the bus station at Banyuwangi, where we found a bus headed for Probolinggo, and Java's most famous volcano: Mt. Bromo.