Mt Merapi, Java island, Indonesia (map)
In this blog: hiking Indonesia's most active volcano
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| Sunrise on top of Mt Merapi |
Mt Merapi is the most active volcano in Indonesia - no mean feat in a country which has 127 of them - and has erupted many times over the years, including 2010 when it killed over 300 people, and again briefly last October.
We both did a load of research for a few hours to work out the safety and logistics of hiking it independently, and it was said to be safe and stable at the moment so all seemed fine. After the early morning at Borobudor temple and still feeling a little ropey from illness, late that afternoon we packed a light day bag and headed off taking a local bus across the congested city, then a regional bus to a transit point called Blabak an hour or two away. At Blabak though, the wheels fell off our plan somewhat when we found the minibuses we'd read about were no longer running. We had something to eat whilst chatting it over in a little cafe, which also doubled as a well stocked fireworks shop! It was now dark, and reluctantly we decided to take a motorcycle taxi to get there, the only option. After agreeing a price I made the guy let me use his helmet, hoping it might slow him down a bit - it did. In fact the drivers were both sensible and when Rene's driver and mine went side to side uphill, it was barely a five mph crawl! From roughly sea level originally, we climbed and climbed and climbed, and a very uncomfortable hour later eventually reached the tiny village of Selo at about 2,000m altitude, easily finding a homestay for the night and got to bed early,
Dawn climb
Like Mt Semeru which I hiked a week or so before, Mt Merapi required a walk through the night to get you there for dawn when the skies are clearer and the gases less toxic, and so the alarm went off at a fairly ridiculous 1am for a 1.30 start.
I didn't feel great again, in fact I felt terrible to be honest, and on reflection yes, I should have rested and gone another day but determination can take you a long way and determined I was. The first couple of miles were on road, getting progressively steeper until turning into a narrower track. I hauled myself along slowly and steadily, and for a few miles we climbed a rocky, rooty path through woods by torchlight until around 4am, when we left the treeline and were on the volcano proper. It had been very hard going in the state I was in but I wasn't getting any worse, and poor old Rene had had to listen to a whole lot of moaning along the way.
We could just make out the silhouette of the volcano as well as the long string of lights from the other hikers ahead of us, and it was a truly intimidating sight, looking almost too steep to be possible. We went for it, accidentally losing the path for a little while and clambering on very loose scree, before finding our way again. The surface was still steep, loose and very slow going. Small rocks sometimes rolled down from the person in front, but 5am brought first light which helped things a little. Strangely I seemed to have flushed any remaining illness out of my system by this point, and in a complete role reversal Rene couldn't keep up with me. Finally, to our delight at around 5.45am we made it and along with maybe fifty other people were on the summit, 2,930m above the sea.
It was an eerie place. We could see into the huge crater below, where gases were coming out of a number of vents and forming dirty clouds above. I looked up at the true summit slightly above, too dangerous to reach, and noted that until an eruption last October it was 40m higher again. The sun was rising in the east, and we were way above the clouds which glowed orange below us. Small vents leaked gases all around us, but not in dangerous quantities. It was quite some place to be, and whilst fairly cold we stayed an hour and a half admiring it all.
The descent went well, and it was great to see the views we'd missed in the dark. By the time we were back in the village though I was done for. The homestay staff bought a breakfast to the room (is it still breakfast when you've been up for ten hours?) and I passed out straight after for a couple of hours.
If getting to Selu in the first place had been difficult, getting back was harder. We were told that being a Sunday the local buses weren't running, and with no other hikers now leaving we were a little stuck. There was only one thing for it, hitchhiking. For twenty minutes all we seemed to see whilst waiting were motorbikes and the odd lorry, and some locals lazed across the road looking a little bemused by us. Eventually though a guy stopped in a Toyota saloon and seemed like a decent chap so we hopped in for an hour of no talking, but lots of loud power ballads. An hour later we were back in Blabak waving down a bus, then another hour again back in Yogyakarta, shattered but happy and ready for the final stop in Indonesia.
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| We hiked through the night to see this, and it was worth it |
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| Mt Merapi summit - used to be 40m higher until an explosion a couple of years ago |
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| Mt Merbabu, neighbouring volcano |
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| Mt Merapi summit |
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| Drying tobacco grown on the mountain |
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