Blue Fire, hiking a mountain...and NEVER AGAIN!

First, I am writing my blog posts later than expected due to my laptop crashing and dying on my first week in Indonesia. HUGE FAIL! I was extremely frustrated, not being able to share my daily experiences and photos in “real time”. But honestly, now I am grateful that’s the way it worked out!  After a month of daily documenting everything I did, taking hundreds of photos and a few videos, I realized that there are some important moments worth writing about and others that were not as awesome as I thought they would be! Being able to ‘pause’  and not share everything right away, truly pushed me to absorb each day as its own and now reflect on the whole trip.  With that being said, one of the stand out moments was our first weekend away from Jakarta to hike Mount Ijen.

My partner Anu and I flew to our host community, Jember, and met up with our host teacher, Umi.  We took a 2 hour express train ride to Banguwangi, where we stayed to be closer to Mount Ijen. Mount Ijen is known for it’s “Blue Fire” (see map & my previous blog post video).  We were told that the hike up the mountain begins at night to see the fire before sunrise, and don’t worry, it “wasn’t that difficult”.  Most people told us it would take about 1 ½ to 2 hours at a slow pace, with some steep inclines that eventually leveled off.  WELL THEY LIED! IT WAS REALLY HARD!

We hired a driver to pick us up from our hotel at 12:30 am and got to the base of the hike at 1:30 am, armed with our flashlights, medical masks, protein bars, jackets, and 1 bottle of water (it wasn’t going to be that bad, right? So why add more weight?!?). We bought our entrance and parking ticket for our driver to wait, and then joined the rest of the groups of tourist ready to hike.  They opened the gate to the trail at 2:00 am and we began to walk the wide matted down ground path.  For the first 45 minutes, we walked easily, thinking we were getting in our morning workout and fueled by the excitement of hiking in a forest at night with hundreds of people!  Then, after about an hour in, the trail gets steeper (ok not too bad) then steeper (We got this, Anu!) and continues at that incline for about another hour (OMG I’m running out of water!) We stopped several times along the side of the trail, resting on tree trunks and the ground at some points. We let hords of true athletes pass us by, including tiny, Indonesian men in flip flops. Most of the Indonesian men were guides of tour groups or sulfur miners, hauling their carts up the mountain to work. The funniest part is they tried to make extra cash by offering “taxi rides” on their carts up the mountain to all the worn-out foreigners….all while smoking cigarettes.  It really was incredible! I couldn’t believe how they did such hard work with such ease, especially after seeing the sulfur chunks they carried out! I tried lifting the 20 kilo basket myself, with no luck.  So for only 400,000 rupiahs ($30), we could have taken the easy way up, but I had too much pride to quit.  Or maybe it was the lack of oxygen, water, and headache that had set in by 3:30 in the morning.  
For real though, Anu and I were getting concerned when we had another hour to get to the top, in order to make it before the sunrise or we wouldn’t be able to see the Blue Fire. Seriously- we had our break down moments of crying, where we thought we would turn back.  But then the thought of 2 hours walking back down, alone in the dark and away from all the people was scarier then the way up! 

That’s when our little Indonesian miner angel appeared! Muliano (at least that’s what I think his name was) became our saving grace, overhearing us while we rested talk about a walking stick.  He said, “You want stick?” then hurried into the woods, rustled around, and came back with 2 long bamboo walking sticks for Anu and I.  We were so thankful and offered him some money, but he wouldn’t take it.  It was now about 4 am. When we asked how much further to the top, he must have seen the desperation in our eyes, because he started walking with us, taking Anu’s arm to help her from falling. He was the sweetest, kindest soul wanting to help us get to the top, calling Anu 'Mama' the whole time.   If it wasn’t for his intervention, I don’t think we would have FINALLY made it by 4:45 am. We could see the blue flames in the distance, near the actual mine pit, but decided not to hike down further.  It would have been another hour or so and a more strenuous climb back out over rocks, and we were tapped out of energy.  So we were happy to see it from above- it was so cool!  The flames are burning methane from the cracks of the earth (NOTE: I have a video of the blue fire I will try to upload later) We met an Australian biologist on the plane and she told us that there are only 2 places in the world where you can see this type of blue fire- Indonesia and Ethiopia.  We sat and watched them until the sun started to brighten the sky around 5:30 am.  It was actually really cold at the top, and some of the miners stopped and made fires, sitting around them to rest and sell some pieces of sulfur to the tourists. The smell of the sulfur became very pungent, especially as the wind shifted and a cloud of sulfurous gas started to move towards us.  That’s when we were ready to leave and hike back down.  

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The walk back down was absolutely gorgeous! It truly was an awe inspiring experience, passing alongside the cliffs we could not see on the way up. We were amazed by how far we had come and how tough we were to have made it.  Some people even said that they had hike to the top before and couldn’t even see the fire with all the clouds. I probably would have had a break down if I did all that hiking and never got rewarded by seeing the famous flames!  Plus, we saw our first monkey in the trees on our way back, reaching the starting entrance gate around 7:30 am.  So we were blessed in so many ways on this adventure!

Hiking Mount Ijen was one of the hardest challenges I faced on this journey, yet also the most rewarding. I could say I will never do it again, once was enough for me!  But looking back, our host community visit started with this mountain and I believe it is truly symbolic of our entire Indonesian fellowship. All of the fellows started at the bottom of a mountain, being in a foreign country with little English language, and we slowly work our way up, pushing ourselves beyond our own limits and what many think is impossible. We struggled every day, whether it was with food, illness, cultural barriers, or language misunderstandings, but we eventually reach the top.  The top of the mountain wasn’t perfect, it was still cold, maybe hard to breath at times, but it became easier when we could see the beauty around us- the generous people, the stunning landscapes and crazy animals.  On the walk back down, we understood the path we climbed, because the light was finally shining on it.  We could make more sense of our surroundings, realizing how much we had accomplished, and that we had help along the entire way.