The Beast - Mount Ijen

I'm currently sat in the back of the jeep bouncing through the roof (literally and mentally) in excitement to write this footprint. Honestly I'm too excited to write this footprint but here goes!

11:55pm - Ring ring ring ring Ahhh! The alarm goes off 😭 We roll out of bed and into our clothes. Then sat around waiting for our driver who came an hour later than expected. We jump in a Jeep, me basically in the boot and off we go. He randomly stopped to chat with his mate on the way and then we headed all the way to the basecamp of Mount Ijen. Oh my god our driver was a complete lunatic. He nearly killed umpteen scooters along the way, going a million miles an hour arou d every corner with not a care in the world what might be there. I did 4200 steps before even getting to Ijen because the journey was sooo bumpy. During the journey we were handed gas masks and torches which I instantly checked so I didn't have problems at the top, and I'm so glad I did (I'll explain later).

When we arrived we were introduced to our guide Tom. Tom had worked as a sulphur miner for 12 years and chose to be a local guide 3 years ago when he began to learn English. Now a bit about the miners. The miners go up and down Mount Ijen 2 or 3 times a day to collect and carry 70-90kg of sulphur which they then sell to Chinese companies. Guess what they get paid... 1,000Rp per kilo which is approximately 6p. Our guide said when he was a miner he got paid 200Rp!! I carried 70kg on my shoulders and it was heavy! Not only are these miners being paid pittance for their jobs can you imagine their working environment?! We had special gas masks, none of the miners that we saw seemed to have masks and oh my god I can't explain how horrible it can get in moments it's suffocating (again I'll explain later).

Back to the hike there were a total of 4 of us in our little group plus Tom the guide. Hiking in pitch black is a crazy experience, it went up, up, up and did I mention it went up. We didn't really stop as we were super keen to see the blue flame while dark and then get to the rim of the crater before sunrise. So we marched to to the top arriving about 3pm and then headed down into the crater gas masks on. What a surreal experience. Its so dark around that you just can't even comprehend what is around you at the time and it's only when it's daylight and your at the top that we realised we were at the edge of the largest acidic crater lake in the world! When we got to the bottom you could see the beautiful flames in all its glory and it was wicked!! The sulphur gas clouds weren't very powerful at the beginning and so you could see really far into it. Tom was an absolute star and took all our cameras so he could get pictures closer to the fire as only miners are allowed to go really close to the fire.

But then... Will had said he wasn't sure if his mask was working but at the time the cloud wasn't so bad. His eyes began to water and he was getting a bit upset with his mask. As I had a working mask I swapped with him as I'd been fine so far and probably taken in a lot less than him so we both happily swapped. The cloud was beginning to get worse, but Tom insisted that we were safe and he wanted to take pictures of us all in the sulphur clouds so we obliged. We then insisted on beginning our ascent and that's when it happened. I have never felt so bad in my life, we turned a corner and all of a sudden I was suffocating. I couldn't breathe, my eyes were burning and honestly I was a mess. I can confirm that the mask was 100% not working. Will yelled for help and Tom ran straight back swapping my mask for his and pulling me through. I couldn't breathe or see, all I could hear was Will being terrified, Benedicte getting really scared too and Tom shouting just around the corner, we need to get around the corner! All this happened in a couple of seconds, but it was so terrifying. Luckily Tom was right and just around the corner it was completely clear. It saddens me to think how many miners will have lost their lives while mining or even how many years must be shaved off their lives because of the poison. Tom took us to a safe spot and then got excited again, took all our cameras and took amazing pictures of the molten sulphur! This gave us all time to cough our lungs out, it didn't help myself and Will already have some sort of chest infection so we were a bit of a mess to be honest. Tom came back super smiley as usual, checked we were all happy and okand then we began the ascent to the crater rim to watch sunrise. It was now getting super busy and a lot of people were still heading down. I felt pretty sorry for these people as by the time they get down they might miss the flame, but by the time they get back up they will probably also miss the sunrise! So glad we had Tom who let me and Will march on. When exiting the crater you could see the sky beginning to light up and we still had quite far to walk round so we walked super speedy, you could see the volcano around you slowly emerge and the mist around slowly glide along. Honestly I can't really explain it in words. We finally got to the edge and wow it was so beautiful, the sunrise and the magnificently immense volcano sitting amongst the towering mountains which slowly emrrged in the distance. Perfect. And that wasn't the end. Next was the revealing of the volcanoes lake. After sunset all you could see in the crater was mist so we sat patiently. As the sun rose higher we saw a brocken spectre of our enormous shadow and after a bit of patience it happened. The mist began to clear revealing the most turquoise blue lake trapped within the formidable walls of the caldera and the dragon breathing sulphur clouds glowing illuminous yellow in the corner. It was a thing of absolute beauty. We waited a little while longer to see if the whole lake cleared but it didn't so we walked further back and were lucky enough to see the tops of Mount Raung. To top it all we saw a double rainbow. Tom insisted on being our photographer the whole time and knew all the perfect shots which was such a nice thing to have. After having 7 months of taking selfies or just having one of us in a picture it was really nice to have some shots of the two of us.

Finally we headed down and wow it was unbelievable to see/ feel how steep the journey up was! I think because it was dark and you couldn't see its gradient it really helped your mindset of climbing up especially as we climbed up within an hour! We ran down most of the way and were down in about 40 mins it was soo the opposite weather as we began to descend. Foggy everywhere, its unbelievable how it changed so quickly! We were super super buzzing when we got to the bottom. I love the feeling of true self achievement. We just couldn't have asked for a better group, guide and weather.

We jumped back in the jeep and the feeling of accomplishment was beaming from my face. Myself and Benedicte turned to each other and realised we all smell like rotten eggs from the sulphur. Bleh. The tour did not stop there. Next stop was a coffee plantation and then a waterfall. As we turned on the engine the heavens opened. The drive down was super tough, but luckily the driver had to drive a bit slower which is helpful while I'm writing this. I won't bore you with telling you about the plantation or the waterfall. They were OK nothing special. We got dropped off at the homestay and our host made us a really yummy cheese and chocolate deep fried bread thing and a hot chocolate. Perfect 😋

In the afternoon me and Will just chatted about everything that happened in the day and just generally about our travels. We are both so excited to see our family and friends, but so unbelievably sad to see this incredible journey come to an end. Let's see... We then rested and finally had a refreshing shower to get rid of that horrid smell.

So I know all you really care about are the pictures and honestly I just don't know which to choose. I might make two footprints, I might post on fb or you might just have to ask me to show you pictures when I see you all in 2 weeks 😁Read more