Craters Within

The road to Cemoro Lawang glistened with the reflection of an overcast rainy-gray. It was a typical Indonesian wet season morning. The potholed asphalt doubled back and forth as it climbed through diminutive farming villages that hugged the steep hills. A patchwork of fields and channels—the hills, with their rust colored soil, were part of Java's central spine. Steep and often leveled into cascades of terraces they disappeared into the drizzly mists, brimming with all manner of crops. Potatoes, cabbages, corn, rice, bamboo, bananas, apples, cocoa, coffee, tea, cinnamon, carrots, and cloves all grew here in abundance, together with just about anything else you car to think of. It seems as though one had only to plant something in the ground for it to flourish. Enviable fertility I thought, but there is sometimes a price to pay for this richness, especially if it happens to be on the weathered flanks of a volcano.

Ahead, hidden by the clouds was the Tengger caldera—a huge collapsed volcanic crater more than ten kilometers across. In itself the scale of the caldera could render the most eloquent speechless, but Tengger had a surprise that once seen was seldom forgotten—a clutch of sibling craters that lay nestled at its womblike heart.

The caldera and its surroundings formed the Bromo-Tengger-Semeru National Park, which can be a bit of a mouthful at the best of times, so the whole region is often referred to simply as Bromo after the caldera's most active crater. Gunung Bromo is neither the highest nor the shapeliest of Tengger's craters, but it is the most revered, not only for the Tenggerese, but throughout Java.

The hours melted away into the clouds that often wrapped about us as I drove towards a hidden world. I had no sense of where I was going or had been. For now, my universe was a rickety white car held within a slow moving fogy bubble. I had almost resigned myself to being trapped within this strange place forever when quite suddenly I rounded a corner to find the way blocked by a lowered, swing barrier. This marked the boundary of the park and curiously, on this day at least, it also marked the limits of the cloud. Beyond, both the road and the clouds became disjointed and broken, the latter revealing thick woodland and looming cliffs. After cresting the caldera's lip the road—that was now little more than a track—dove steeply through tight cuttings of layered, coke-like tephra. Stratified walls that laid bare the flesh of an old volcano that may once have stood thousands of meters higher than Tengger's present height. The crumbling cliffs loomed claustrophobically as we descended through thick undergrowth and pine. It was here, as I swung around the umpteenth switchback that I caught may first glimpse of a broad sweeping plain that curved into the distance, towards a small, conical volcano—this was Gunung Batok. It was a beautiful sight that I tried to etch into my memory. Unfortunately the clouds had other ideas as they swirled around this miniature peak, concealing and revealing it in quick secession, taunting me like some strange, ghostly matador.

What little blacktop there was left on the road, ended as I reached the base of the caldera, where it was replaced by an un-metalled track that stretched boldly out over the dark, wet dunes. Ahead, Batok seemed to have grown in stature, its flat summit still scraping the clouds as it stood guard over its sibs. Sweeping into the distance the pitched walls of the caldera shot skywards painted in solemn shades of move and green. Between, the lava sands had a sparse, patchy covering of grasses—some with white tufted seed-heads that waved in the breeze. Tall clumps of yellow-splashed fennel dotted the ground too between lone, pioneering evergreens.

Skirted Batok I headed towards a small Hindu temple nestled beneath a gray steaming vent—this was Gunung Bromo. In reality this most worshiped of volcanic locals was a bit of a disappointment. Lower than its neighbors Bromo seemed quite un-volcano like in profile, it also bore a scare in the form of a long and very ugly flight of concrete steeps that lead visitors from a folding, dusty track up to the crater rim. In fact the only indication of this rutted mass being a volcano at all, was the swirls of white steam that rose in slow motion from hidden depths.

Behind Bromo a third crater, Gunung Kursi stood head and shoulders above the others, and like Gunung Batok, Kursi was fluted and covered with small trees, brush and tall grass—it was likely that neither had erupted for generations, if not centuries.

A pare of Tenggerese horseman had watch my coming and galloped towards me, their compact ponies lifting a spray of damp sand from their hooves. These tribesmen made a living by shuttling tourists from the calderas base, to the foot of Bromo's steps. I felt a little bad declining their trade, but I hadn't come all this way to be carried up a volcano. The men soon lost interest and trotted off to join several of their compatriots warming themselves by a fire near the temple gates. The rain had began to fall again and the sky seemed darker than ever. Tengger's misted, dark walls pressed in upon the bleak scene, but for me it was a breathtaking place, full of wonder.

That night I stayed in a little wooden cabin perched right on the edge of this magical panorama, it was definitely one of the most spectacular views I had ever seen. The escarpment of the caldera's lip fell like high sea cliffs to a flattened sea of volcanic ash, and beyond, In the far distance stood Gunung Semeru; Java's highest volcano. Every half hour or so the distant summit puffed out a mushrooming plume of ash that drifted off in fading smoke-signal patches, across the evening sky. In terms of my imagined seven volcanic wonders of the world—Tengger had to be up there with the best.

In the early hours of the following morn I stepped from my snug cabin into a consuming, cold darkness. My eyes, still blurred from sleep, were greeted by a crystal heaven, a night sky hung with stars so bright they seemed reachable. In contrast, the caldera was a gapping black void of nothingness, but it had a few moving stars of its own—the dull twinkling torchlight of lone souls intent on seeing the sunrise from Bromo's crater. I thought of following, but instead chose to watch daybreak from the edge of Tengger, a view that words cannot easily describe. As the sky began to pale, the blackness of the caldera transformed gradually into a lake of mist pierced by the huddle of craters that rose through the pallid sea in stark silhouettes.

For some reason the view reminded me of Rakhmaninov The Island Of The Dead. Inspired by Böcklin's painting—Rakhmaninov had composed one of the century's greatest symphonic poems—and I wondered, as I watched Tengger unfold into the light, what music might he have written had he been by my side.

Java's equatorial days begin as they end. Abruptly and with little twilight. For a time the sun had shot the sky with brilliant oranges and reds—painted for today's opening scene and no other—in minutes the backdrop had been vanquished by the new sun. Before long the last ribbons of white mist folded away in the breeze revealing the lava sands veined with slight tracks. I could just make out several villagers weighed down with bundles of lush foliage cut from the slopes, antlike they threading across the dunes in brisk convoy. Others were still on Tengger's slopes cutting wood and scything tall grasses. I watched as one old man slowly cut his way through the thick, leafless branch of a denuded tree—and pondered on just how much of a national park the caldera actually was.

Few will dispute the need to preserve and sustain the environment and in particular natural wonders such as Bromo, but it is also true that these environments are becoming increasing threatened by an ever growing human population, a conflict of interests that Indonesia is only to aware of.

Until now Java has been able to use its rich land to sustain its mounting populace, sustaining its natural resources may however, prove to be somewhat harder to achieve. Only scraps of the island's once continuous blanket of forest survives. Ecosystems that are unique and irreplaceable. Many of the pockets surviving surround and clock the flaks of Java's Gunung Api—its Fire Mountains. Weather these last havens can be cosseted in perpetuity for Indonesia and the world remains to be seen, but one thing is certain,—that to have a temperament volcano guarding these forests is probably no bad thing.

Tengger is indeed a majestic sight a quality that in itself helps to keep the parks future secure, but Gunung Bromo is also the most revered volcano in Indonesia. Here the Tenggerese population pays homage during the festival of Kesodo. Offerings of money, food, flowers and rice, and sacrifices of goats and chickens are all made here in honor of the crater god Hyang Wide. For the Hindu-Buddhist Tenggerese, the Kesodo festival is a chance to placate ill fortune and promote good luck—Hyang Wide is also known by his Hindu name—Brahman—from which the name Bromo is derived. Legend has it that the crater god had promised the childless rulers of the Tengger people; prince Joko Senger and princes Roro Anteng 25 children in return for their first born. They had accepted the terms and had many children, yet in time they could not bring themselves to give up their favorite son and instead fled into hiding—hotly perused by the crater gods ashen breath. Their struggle to cheat Hyang Wide was doomed to fail. In the end the ruler's eldest child Raden Kusuma was engulfed by the 's volcanic fires—beseeching the people to make annual offerings to the crater god in his memory. To this day, each year they do just that, filling the caldera with torrents of devotees and onlookers.

Kesodo had been and gone so that the caldera was all but deserted as I paced barefoot over the fine sparkling lava sands. It was a wonderful feeling walking with nothing between me and the volcano—that seemed to echo underfoot, as though hollow. No doubt towards the culmination of Tengger's last paroxysm its innards had become just that, prompting one of the most cataclysmic types of volcanism there is—a caldera forming collapse of a spent volcano. The thick layers of tephra and ash that I had seen on my first descent into the abyss presented one with a graphic testimony to these past events. Layers of highly vesiculated and fragmented lava contrasted with comparatively thin layers of fine, pale ash.

Some of these layers were clearly graduated, beginning with an ash layer overlain by lapilli and scoria. These fragments became progressively coarse towards the top where they would be abruptly caped by another layer of ash. This sequence seemed to indicate a pattern of activity that began with the eruption of fine ash that had quickly progressed into energetic episodes of activity that deposited the thicker, coarser layers above. The increasing size of the material towards the top seemed to indicate that this second phase had increased in intensity until its magmatic supply had suddenly abated, bring an abrupt halt to the proceedings.

Written like this it seems all a bit technical to the uninitiated and I dare say hopelessly vague to a volcanologist.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed trying to conject, to imagine what had taken place—to glean from the rocky text the answers to a cloud of questions that seemed to vent through my mind in unison with Bromo. How many hours or years or centuries between the layers? Was the lava basaltic or andesitic? How violent had the caldera's formation been? And when was it going to put in an encore? This last question is the central driving force for most volcanologist who collectively seek the holy grail of eruption prophecy.

I'm passionate about volcanoes to the extent that I have a growing library of books and related material written by these, often literally, silver-clad crusaders. But I am no volcanologist. Nonetheless, it is asking questions and seeking their answers that is the method of all exploration, and this I fell to be the purview of everyone, regardless of credentials.

Tengger—as with all the volcanoes I had visited—was awash with intrigue that swirled invisible with the dust devils as they raced across the sands. From above, the caldera had seemed almost flat, but swallowed within, the terrain revealed itself in undulations of dunes and films of contrasting silt and ash. Miniature canyons and dry streambeds cut the friable ground as they threaded to distant meadowland and the emerald slopes of the calderas far wall. This remarkable landscape was overseen by the naked crown of Gunung Semeru, still puffing away in the distance. It was one of those rare occasions when all the elements in the universe seem to coordinate to give a perfect moment—timeless and intensely personal, it is these moments that define who we are.

As I walked towards the rutted gullies of Bromo I passed small clumps of vegetation that stood proud of the gray sea. Their roots held the dust and organic detritus blown over the caldera, slowly building tiny islands of life that seemed somehow to cope with Bromo's acrid breath.

Periodically Tengger's prevailing winds would swing or drop and on these days the whole caldera usually filled to overflowing with a dry, sulfurous mist. Today the mist was not of the volcano, cool and fresh, it painting the plants and sleepy insects with garlands of daybreak dew. Spindrift tangled between seed-heads, held crystal balls of water—each a perfect lens that held an upturned image of its surroundings.

Bromo's ruffled skirt was a splayed jumble of tight gullies and crests—the surface of which had the odd character of powdery dust covered by an icing of fragile eggshells. It looked solid enough, that is until I made the mistake of trying to climb over the stuff—within seconds I had foundered, blooding my hands. A painful mistake I did not repeat. In places the tuff had been cut vertically by the rains, revealing patches of natural canvas ripe for would be artists. Here and there the strata was defaced by scratched graffiti—messages of love, of having been and seen, fleeting testimonies of human presence. These ugly words had sadden me, yet in the scheme of things they would soon be worn away. In truth, it is of course the volcano that makes the greater mark on us.

Later I climbed Bromo to watch the dimming sky through a rising veil of sulfurous steam. The setting sun had already began to tint this platted column as Venous began twinkled diamond-bright in a spectrum sky of violet, magenta, and sapphire—colors that seemed to grow more intense as the sun dipped below Tengger's shadowy ramparts. Below, Bromo's crater-walls swept down to a flattened base scared by wide, impenetrable cracks. I had expected to see the crater filled with dense fumes, but to my surprise found the plume of steam rising from only one small place, silently spreading as it rose into the cool, evening air. There was a precarious path that twisted down into the crater between dormant fumaroles frosted yellow and white with sublimates, Bromo was at rest. Yet I knew this state was a transient one, it was only a matter of time before the crater god stirred once again.

By the time I left Bromo and was walking back across the lava sands, night had taken hold. Tengger's height and lack of light pollution allowed the stars to be incredible clear, swathed by the dappled band of the Milky Way, they glistened from rim to rim, lighting my path. I was totally alone with nothing save the occasional droning hum of beetles as they darted invisible through the blackness. I was so happy to be there at that moment, that I seriously considered spending the night lying on the sands watching the slow turning of the heavens—but at over 2,000 meters Tengger at night can be damp and more than a little chilly in spite of its latitude.

The next day I wandered between hilling butterflies along the caldera rim, skirting fields of cabbages and onions, and the odd tumbledown homestead. The path hugged the caldera's edge that fell away through thick undergrowth to the sands 250 meters or more below—where dots of Tenggerese villagers moved silently along the lattice of thin paths. Most of these people had little wealth, yet I envied their home, their connection with the land, with the volcano, and its god.

Java is a volatile place to live geologically and sociologically, now, as it was when the Tenggerese first settled here on the bow wave of Muslim insurgence that spread throughout most of Indonesia. They discovered at Tengger a fertile haven that was beyond reach or influence, a state that in part, at least, remains to this day.

To the west and east other volcanoes stretched away into the haze, their gray heads rising high above broken sheets of cotton wall cumulus. One day, I thought, I hope to know them all. A dream—perhaps. But Tengger is the sort of place that makes one dream.