It is at first a suspicion of deep blue then of turquoise and indigo. Here is the orange that pinks and blushes at the ends. A pinch of yellow invites. Sprinkled with violet. A chromatic rainbow over a few mountains in front of us, like a cloud-decked board, a stage scene of wayang kulit. Here they are the puppets ... The clouds are gathered to form hallucinating characters with grotesque and monstrous shapes, with contours worked and complex. They play a scene. The opening scene .
- a path strewn with pitfalls :
Sunrise Suspended above the landscape, suspended in time, we may live the sunrise of our life. We had to go get him! Perhaps it is even more expensive? Because the sunrise in Bromo, it does not start at dawn ... it starts a few days before ... In Malang.
There are places indeed where it is very difficult to trace its course. Accessing the Bromo by our own means has taken the course of the combatant. It should be said that everywhere are sold all-inclusive packages. So to get out of the circuit it is necessary to undo.
And the difficulties begin with the taking of information.
"This road is closed", "If you want to go by motorcycle you will have to leave it in a certain village and borrow a local transport", "you will not get there it must be a jeep", "it is the rainy season , the road is bad "...
The info crosses and does not resemble each other. The truth is somewhere but where? We decide to try the motorcycle by taking the longest and safest route. And if one is forced to a place on the course to put crutch on the ground and well!
After cross-country attempts, escorts by teenagers keen to put us on the right road, chatting to the warung, rain, stands of offerings to throw in the crater, vegetable traders, plantations onions and a good drop, we arrive without any hindrance and against all expectations to Cemoro Lawang on the edge of the Tengger crater. A thick mist veils most of the landscape. What she leaves to our view is already stunning: a small volcano lonely in the middle of a sea of sand enclosed by huge cliffs ...
- live from viewpoint gunung penanjakan:
In fact it was not this small volcano. He has two others just behind. We discover him from the official view point to see the birth of the day at the top of the Gunung Penanjakan.
A whole circuit to get there. A road on a motorbike, or rather roads seen at 2 o'clock in the morning it is not easy to take the right road ... forty-five minutes of uneven to the front ... Then the crush to make a way between dozens of jeep and stalls (grilled corn, souvenirs, cafes, flowers, rental of sweaters ...). A large concreted esplanade crowns our efforts. Well almost.
Bromo-Tengger-Semeru National ParkGroups of visitors have already climbed the gates to perch as high as possible. Apart from a myriad of buttocks you do not see much. A small tracking allows us to find a corner of wire mesh available. We are quickly hundreds to the appointment.
The first rays emerged from the crowd, and the multitude became a sea whose waves struck against the barriers. We cling to it with the despair of shipwrecked.
Not having the capacity of a camera in the hands, I am therefore prompt enough to push me to leave a backdrop to the clichés of others. I obey, to each his end of show. We are just too many! Bourrades, agitation, tides ... for a few minutes of dawn ... At the time for dream contemplation!
- beach and smoke :
But the sun rises only once a day! We offer a trip to another sea, sand this time. What was supposed to be a challenge - according to our anti-motorcycle informants - that is to say, rolling on the sand during the rainy season - is surprisingly easy. What's more, wet and compacted sand easily sticks to the ground.
Here we are in the middle of a playground, a huge playground! And we take an incredible pleasure rolling and turning in every direction in a surreal landscape ... Volcanoes, cliffs, greens, chestnuts, yellows ... Here we are at the beginning of the world in an amazing setting! One would almost expect to see some prehistoric creatures appear ... The evaporation of moisture makes the sand smoke. Here we are grains among billions of them.
The walls of Bromo also smoke. Evaporation and Sulfur. Around a gigantic abyss - 800 m in diameter and 200 m deep - with steep slopes a road margin incites to face the vertigo and to believe oneself the masters of the world.
Rain and mist quickly take away our fantasies of omnipotence, it is nature that reigns supreme here. We are at most happy spectators of his work. Citizents. That will only leave imprints quickly swept. The locals know that. The men here do not command anything. They tell, offer, pray.
They say that the Tengger crater was dug with half a coconut by an ogre in love. They tell that in distant times the god-volcano delivered a royal couple of his sterility in exchange for the life of one of their children. Who threw himself into the crater to appease the god who threatened all his family. In memory of what the Hindu tengger of today offer chicken, money, vegetables, flowers ... to the volcano by throwing them in his huge mouth at an annual ceremony.
And men pray. Honor. Builders.
Thus a small temple is echoed and witnessed at the feet of the giants.
But here we are before a picture with changing colors. We were at the opening scene ... Here is the main role: the light!
Hardly nascent, she is already giving birth ... volcanoes, mountains, landscape!
The folded edges of the reliefs are the first to be drawn, the first to absorb the rays and to return an echo to the mistress of work. The sea of sand is a white and luminous carpet, a huge and dense web of spider whose dewdrops, prisoners, shine in the early morning. The veil gradually tears. A part starts with the assault of the cliffs to create an immense wave capable of climbing their relief. Another mingles with the industrial chimney of the Bromo which smokes without ceasing.
On the side of the blue mountains let their silhouette cut out. Their feet drowned in the mist. A backdrop in front of which a lonely volcano plays the foreground. At our feet Cemoro Lawang and its many cultures that organize so geometrically space, painter's palette where all chestnuts and greens seem ready to be used. Groves put their grain of salt to disorder straight lines. The heavy mist, shaved, furrows between the trunks. She is seen dancing like smoke. It serves as a carpet in the shadows projected by the trees, creating streaks on the entire plateau.
Original and unreal vision that this birth of landscape. Instant suspended, short and long; elastic time, as it always is in Indonesia, stolen from eternity.
This sublime moment, this precious moment, we owe them to a beautiful meeting. That of Mariono. Encountered downhill from our overcrowded viewpoint. It is there, alone, perched on a small promontory that embraces a 180 ° view.
With a small campfire. It comes every day to welcome the sun here, whether it rains or it sells. All year. To sell some coffee and hot noodles to that will pass by there. It was here with him that we came to applaud this spectacle.
Bamboo banks had emerged from the bushes. As a gamelan of birds, the chanting of cocks in the distance, the crackling of the fire of Mariono and the rustling of chipped conversations with other tengger come to finish their morning work ...
Today it seems pompous that the day has only risen for us.
The Bromo cowboy Magic accompanies us for a while while we drive in the sea of sand, taking the famous "closed" road.
The proportions are so great that one has the impression to make the spot, not to progress in this titanic picture. Out of nowhere a solitary cowboy, wrapped in a sarong, greets us by pulling on his cigarette before leaving galloping in the immensity. After a few kilometers we leave the gigantic crater to join a ridge that makes us play the tightrope walkers with vacuum on each side.
Then it's the long descent and the jungle with its smell of earth and wood. Last deep inspiration. And back to Malang where the crowded streets force us despite us to go down a bit on earth ...
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