After a short 3 hour night’s sleep, we got up at 0:40 am, ready to head up to Mount Ijen to see the blue fire and its turquoise lake. Everyone still sleepy, we zoomed through the thick forest in our van until 40 min later we arrived at the volcano’s base. We were handed (not very tight) gas masks to wear once inside the volcano, as the sulphuric smoke can get quite intense at times and apparently contains some toxic gases too. Not so much of a problem for us, being there for only a couple of hours, however, another “attraction” in and around Mount Ijen are the hard working sulphur miners, who, for a tiny fraction of money, carry big and heavy chunks of sulphur out of the volcano, in order for it to be used for medicine and cosmetics. It doesn’t sound much, but having struggled up the steep uneven rocks to get out of the volcano, I can only imagine how hard it must be to do all this with about 90 kg on my shoulders! We all agreed that this must be one of the hardest jobs to do and respected the workers for their determination.
Pretending to be a hard working sulphur miner.
Now or never - Kathrin's RTW diary 