Crater Ijen

Yes…. Because I was not able to fall asleep, I wasn’t waking up at 24:00 to the tour and someone of the hostel I met at the day before woke me up. At the end we still had time.

Unfortunately it rained so fucking hard, that we were not able so the the blue fire at the crater Ijen. (That arises, when a gas fountain blowes up at night at the ijen acidic lake)

The crater is as well known for acidic crater lake, and labour-intensive sulfur mining. Our guide was a miner. Hike 2h in a such a crazy rain.

After 6 of 8 people went down, because it was to cold for them and they had not seen the blue fire, Regietze and myself had an private tour at the crater ijen with our guide. There we have seen the lake quite nice as well as the gas exit holes. We needed to wear a gas mask because of the gases there. It smelled very strong as well. Unfortunately a stripe of my mask cracked, so I needed to hold it by my hands.

Our guide earns more money now with the tours instead of sulfer mining (150kg each day, before carrying now a buggy for that) à 1.000 <200.000 Rupien).

In summary I had a nice tour, but it was quite hard and exhausting. It was a big pitty, that I have not seen the blue fire…Read more