Ijen
Doni is still feeling poorly, so leaves us in Jember to go home to recuperate. Tom and I take a taxi to Ijen. We drive up through the rain forest to coffee plantations on the upper slopes. So this is the source of the famous Java coffee. Unfortunately the highest quality stuff doesn’t make it to the local markets, and what they do serve is fine grounds dumped directly into hot water. I soon gave up seeking good coffee and switched to tea.
Catimer Homestay
After an unplanned detour to the wrong hotel, we arrive at Catimer Homestay, which is the old Dutch plantation headquarters dating from 1894. Doni had assured us they always have rooms, but tonight the hotel is fully booked by a large noisy French tour group. Except, oh yes, they might have one room, which Tom and I will have to share. I consider sleeping outside. Finally another room surfaces once the tour is sorted out, much to my relief.
I poke around in the large reception room of the hotel. A botanist once lived here. On the bookshelf is a well-worn Benson’s Plant Classification, a book I practically memorized in my youth, and books on the horticulture of tropical plants. There’s also a four-volume set on the plants of Indonesia, but the photocopied pictures are of poor quality. Nonetheless, I attempt to identify some of the plants we’ve seen. The lavender crater plant with strongly veined leaves is Melastoma candidum, or Senggani.
We’re up at 4:00 a.m. to get an early start on the volcano. I stumble out of the room in my usual early morning fog, trying to summon enough energy and coordination to plop into a jeep for the ride to the trailhead. Instead we are presented with two motorcycles.
“Motorcycles?” Tom asks imploringly, looking at me. I can only imagine bouncing up a mountain road in the dark with a heavy daypack and no sense of balance. Not this morning, I shake my head.
Tom arranges for a Suzuki flatbed mini-truck, and we wait a bit for the driver to be rustled out of bed. We drive up to Kawah (Lake) Ijen, where there’s a backpacker’s camp at the trailhead. It’s a 45 minute hike up a rather steep trail to an overview of the crater.
“See, here are bits of the sulfur already.” Tom points to some yellow dust on the trail. Ijen is famous for its sulfur mines which tap liquid sulfur fresh from the volcano. Miners carry the ore down the trail after a strenuous haul up from the pit.
Kawah Ijen
We reach the rim and look down on a scene from hell. The lake in the crater of Ijen is said to be one of the most acidic in the world. Vegetation on the crater rim is dead in the prevailing direction of the fumes. A yellow pit, like a festering boil, is the site of the sulfur mining. This morning the wind is blowing steadily in one direction, carrying the fumes away from where we want to go, which is to the pit.
All the work is done by hand and foot. Liquid sulfur drips out of pipes and solidifies into chunks, which the miners carry in baskets up to the rim. They hike in socks and thongs and periodically switch their load from one shoulder to the other with a smooth practiced motion. They go slow and haltingly uphill, but once over the rim, trot quickly downhill to the weighing station.
We try to lift their baskets of ore and can’t even budge them. These guys are not exactly hulks, and I can’t see how they build up enough strength to carry such heavy loads.
We get up close to the active mining site and peer through the fumes at liquid sulfur dripping from the pipes. The miners roll molten sulfur on strings like candles and sell them to the tourists.
Sulfur candle-making
Acrid fumes come and go, but still the wind is favorable for observing the pit. That could change at any time. Tom and I carry gas masks, but a large group of French tourists has none. The miners work right in the fumes, with no bandanas, masks, or anything.
After a time, the wind falters and fumes begin to fill the crater. Tom has already left, so I high-tail it out of there -- and just in time. Looking back from the rim, I see nothing but yellow gas. The group of French tourists is still down there in the fumes. Maybe they’re in their element.
Back at the weighing station, a miner hoists his load onto the balance scale. A crowd of noisy overweight tourists waits in anticipation, cameras poised. The needle swings to 80 kg. The crowd lets out an “ahh”, snapping away with their cameras. I’m baffled. Why do the miners carry such heavy loads? Why don’t they use mules? Maybe it’s a contest to see who can carry the most ore.
Escape from Ijen
So the miners carry 80 kg, earn 600 Rp/kg, and carry two loads per day. That comes out to about $10.00 a day, plus tips, with the currency being cigarettes and cash. It must be a living wage, though there seem to be few young miners taking up the trade. Do they make more from the sulfur, or from milking the tourists? The whole setup is bizarre. These guys must have lungs that are fried and a lifespan that’s unnaturally short. There must be easier ways to earn a living, but they still do it. It seems like they could make more selling T-shirts.
We take the flatbed truck back to the hotel. The intermittent water supply is now on, so I take a shower to finally wash off the ash from Semeru.