After 4 hours of driving, 9 hours of flying, 6 hours of airport security, immigration and just old-fashion waiting around, we touched down in Jakarta. I had arranged a tour through the internet with some man named Roman. We were told that we would be met by a guide to drive us three more hours to Carita beach in western Java. When we arrived, we scanned the crowd waiting for someone to appear. We began to get a little panicky when a short Indonesian man in tousled t-shirt and jeans approached us. He said he was sent to pick us up. I had waves of anxiety run down my spine. Here we were, three women alone in a completely third world country, with no assurety that this guy was who he said he was. We had nothing else lined up, so we took a leap of faith and got in his car.
For five hours we drove into the deep of the Indonesian countryside. The road was riddled with pot holes. Riding in the car reminded me of the herky-jerky bouncing and swerving of the wild mouse ride at Lagoon. We were all getting nauseated and experiencing whiplash every few minutes. The road was nearly washed out due to the monsoon rains at times.
At certain places, the traffic was at a standstill and no one seemed to know what to do or how to get two lanes of traffic around giant potholes. It turned into sheer craziness.
While all along side the road were other types of traffic. This picture was of a local farmer taking his cow herd home around rush-hour, right on the main road.
Our first stop was the Carita (pronounced Charita) beach lighthouse. This lighthouse was built in 1885 after the giant tsunami of 1883 which was caused when Krakatau volcano erupted. Tens of thousands of people were killed, similar to the one that hit Banda Aceh and Sumatra in 2004.
We hiked up 17 floors of winding stairs to reach a breathtaking view of western Java.
After our stop here, our driver pulled off the main road onto a side dirt road that was no larger than a sidewalk, which cut through the rice patties and palm trees. He said something none of us could understand. The car ascended a steep hill toward a painted cement home. In fact, the hill was so steep, we thought the car would roll backward--but that wasn't our main concern. Our main concern was that we could not verify who this man really was, we had no idea where we were at or where he was taking us AND we were three women trusting our lives to this guy. When we arrived, the man ordered us into the house. He kept saying it was an office, but we didn't understand what office he was talking about. Two other men came out toward us and ushered us into a side room of the house. My stomach was in knots at this point, until I realized that he had brought us to a "seismograph office" where they monitored the magma movements of Krakatau. Then I relaxed and accepted that what they were showing us was not at all sinsiter, but pretty dang cool. We got to watch the current readings and look back through the past months and see what the readings looked like when it recently erupted this past December.
They dropped us off at a condo in Carita beach that was two bedroom, one bath with a balcony that overlooked the beach. We listened to the waves and sat and enjoyed the food they brought us each morning for breakfast. We were pretty excited that things were turning out the way we had hoped, but we still weren't completely trusting, so we we booby-trapped all the doors at night, just in case.
Early the next morning we were taken to the marina for a boat ride to Krakatau to hike the volcano. This was an incredible day--probably my very favorite of the entire trip.
The boat ride was about two hours. The water was calm and a beautiful deep aqua color--especially as we neared the island where the beach was perfectly black. The black sand gave the water a unique color that I have never seen before.
In the picture below you can see that there are two other small islands right next to the volcano island. Originally, before 1883, they were joined as one larger island with three active volcanoes. In 1883, the volcanoes erupted so forcefully that it blew the island apart and razed the volcanoes to sea level. This caused a giant tsunami that hit Java and killed thousands. It also affected global temperatures and caused snow in Europe in the middle of the summer. Today, the volcano has built itself back up and continues to grow every year.
The base of the island was tropical jungle, but that quickly gave way to a steep rise of volcanic ash and rocks. It was so desolate it reminded me of the scene in the last Lord of the Rings where Frodo and Sam must take the ring up the volcano.
In case the tropical heat and humidity weren't bad enough, the black of the sand produced intense heat as we trekked straight up the volcano's side.
But when we made it, it was all worth it. The views were breathtaking. There is something very humbling about being on the side of a live volcano watching smoke billow out of the top!
Regularly, lava rocks erupt out of the top of the volcano and land on the side. Here you can see that the white is recent volcanic ash, and the smoke that is drifting upward indicates recent rocks (also called volcanic bombs) that have landed on the side of the volcano. We didn't venture down in the fresh, smoldering ash. I do have some limits to my adventurous spirit!
On the way down, the ash kept getting in our sandals, so we decided to take the volcano barefoot. Forget a pumice stone pedicure, this is way better!
Perhaps, the thing I loved most about our first few days in western Java was the myriad of vibrant colors. Everything was colorful and a far cry from the monotonous grey drab of Daegu.
After descending the volcano, we circled the small island and headed over to one of the other nearby islands for some incredible snorkeling.
Like I said, the colors were overwhelmingly beautiful. This was my idea of heaven. The water temperature was like bathwater. The fish variety and visibility were not the best I have had when snorkeling, but the shape and variety of the coral was by far the most remarkable I have seen.
We snorkeled for about 90 minutes and then we went ashore to eat lunch, explore and swim some more.
We unwittingly left our lunch remnants on the beach while we went to swim again. While we were gone, a 4 foot long monitor lizard emerged from the jungle attempting to steal our food. He was skiddish when we approached, but he had two inch long claws so I wasn't about to chase him anywhere. In the end he got our chicken bones. I'll post the video in another entry.
We returned to Carita Beach and ate dinner at a tiny little ratan cafe on a little side road. We had asked our driver to take us somewhere to get Wifi. They didn't understand at first and then suddenly said, "Oh, whiffey." Whatever you want to call it--but amazingly, in the middle of the jungle in a little hut we got the best WiFi of the entire trip--and the best Indonesian fried chicken.
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