The wind blew fiercely in my face as I peered through the darkness trying to see the end of this strenuous journey that I had embarked upon. I stood on a loose rock cliff wearing nothing but my khakis and a T-shirt in the dead of night. It was cold now, about 40F and the wind had picked up to about 30mph. The pain in my legs was the only thing that made me forget the cold. We had been climbing for about 2 hours and every step was becoming an accomplishment. I thought back and couldn't believe that I only arrived here in Yogyakarta 6 hours ago and was now over 1000ft in the sky climbing one of the most active volcanoes in the world in the middle of the night.
My group was starting to get out of sight, so I motivated myself to move again. I was so tired and now the climb had gone from about a 10% grade on a paved road, to a 45% grade where there were only rocks and no path at all. Worse yet, the final climb that lay before us loomed at about a 50-70% grade and would require even greater coordination from my tired legs. The night was beautiful as the full moon shone brightly in the sky, but here above the tree line all I could stare at was the rocky ground in front of me.
Twenty minutes passed and our Indonesian guides decided to take a break behind an outcropping of rocks. These guys were relentless. They worked the farms on the slopes all day and made these climbs with tourists at night. They had gone up and down this huge mountain so many times that to them it was nothing more than a brisk evening walk. They came well prepared for the cold and their legs were like steel.
“About how long will it take us to reach the top from here?” I yelled over the howling wind to one of our guides who seemed to have a better command of English than the rest.
“No speak English good,” he mustered back to me. Oh well, I went over to the German guy and two Swedish girls I had been climbing with.
“So, how long do you guys think it will take from here?”
“I don’t know, maybe another hour or so. It’s gotten very cold, yah?” The German said back to me.
“Ya,” I responded back. The German was very determined to make it to the top and to show no pain in doing so. He had steadily climbed without a single complaint the whole way. I could see some pain in his eyes as the trail got steeper and steeper, but he never said a word.
“You must be freezing in that short sleeve shirt, no?” one of the Swedish girls asked me.
“Ah, you know, us Americans, we make the best of what we got and tough it out.” I said back.
“So, you are very cold is what you’re trying to tell me, no?” She wittingly responded back.
“yep, freezin my pants off.” I responded back.
Our guides finished up their cigarettes, waved to us and then started moving further down the trail. I looked out ahead and saw that it would be flat and rocky for a little bit before we hit our final ascent, which from where I was, looked like a sheer faced cliff.
As I stepped out from behind our rock shelter, the bitter cold night wind blew in my face. We were now walking directly into the wind, making our progress even more difficult. As we walked no one said a word. It took every bit of concentration just to keep our legs moving. I thought about my friends and family back home in New York and just how very far away from them I was at this very moment. I looked at my watch and saw that it was now about 3:30am. That meant that on their side of the world they were winding down their Friday work day and preparing for the weekend. I wondered if any of them were thinking of me and what I was doing. I could just imagine my friend Paul thinking, “Ah Doug, he’s probably soaking up the rays on some Asian resort beach surrounded by beautiful Asian women.” Boy was he ever wrong.
About half an hour later we reached our final ascent. It was quite treacherous and my legs were begging me to quit. I had to resort to reciting song lyrics just to get my mind off of the pain so I could continue. Half the way up the steep cliff I grabbed a rock and it felt warm. "Great," I thought, "Now I have hypothermia and am hallucinating!" But sure enough, my German friend confirmed that it was definitely warm. It gave me the motivation to get to the top figuring that the top of an active volcano had to be warm.
The logic of a tired, cold man proved unsound as I reached the top and was blasted by icy winds that came at me from every direction. Some of our guides called us over as they peered off the edge of a cliff. I ventured over and looked down to see a massive red and black sea of molten rock. It was so intense. I was staring at the open blood stream of the Earth. None of the movies I had seen, or books that I had read, even came close to the site of seeing molten lava. You walk on the Earth every day and always look at what grows on it, or what has been built from it, but never realize the life it itself possesses. Looking down into that crater made me realize the power and vibrancy of the molten rock and massive tectonic movements that make up the innards of this planet. I stood amazed at the site.
My amazement came to a quick end as my body reminded me that I was freezing to death. I looked away from the mouth of volcano and across the top of the plateau that we were standing on in the hope of finding a shelter. I noticed that several of my group looked rather content sitting against the walls of what looked like a crater. The crater seemed to give them limited protection from the wind, and still appeared brutally cold. I scurried over and sat down near them. To my surprise it the wall made me quite warm. I then noticed that there was steam seeping up from the ground around me. They had found the steam ventilation shafts for the volcano...woo-hoo!!! It's probably what saved me from hypothermia and frostbite.
As I sat there getting wet and burned from the steam on one side and icy and frozen on the other, I started to wonder why I chose to do this. I had worked a full day in Jakarta, flew to a small Indonesian city and made a five hour climb up a steep volcano at midnight. It all looked good in the brochure, but what was the point? This experience thus far had been sheer hell. The molten lava was something I hadn’t expected to see and was absolutely incredible, but the cold and the climb were killing me. Perhaps my machismo had gotten the best of me. My soul searching reached a conclusion about 5:00am. That was when the first rays of the sun sparked across the sky. The sunrise was more gorgeous than I could have ever imagined. As the light of the sun slowly infiltrated the night sky, I saw several other volcanoes rising above the clouds and the whole sky turned a fiery red. I looked down to see the morning mists flowing through the valleys below us like a river. Beyond that I could see the South Pacific as it reflected the sunrise like a mirror. I felt like I was in the heavens walking amongst the Gods (except I had always thought heaven would be a more comfortable temperature). I could no longer see the lava in the volcano as the light of day turned its steam into an opaque white cloud. But the amazement of viewing the Earth’s internals was clearly surpassed by the view the light of the sun was gifting us with. It was fantastic!!! I took out my camcorder and filmed as much of it as I could (after hauling the 10lb bag all the way up, I had to use it), but the lens quickly fogged over quickly from the cold, humid air forcing me to return it to its case. I stood there for about five minutes in a physical, spiritual and mental stupor as I absorbed the awesome beauty of the planet I was blessed enough to live on. Then chills replaced my euphoria as another strong gust of wind reminded me that life isn’t all pleasure. I forced myself to endure another five minutes and then scrambled back to my little haven of steam in the crater. When I was warm enough, I stepped out again to enjoy the spectacular that Mother Nature was presenting. This made the suffering I had endured more than worth it. I had been gifted with a view into the mesmerizing beauty of the innards of the Earth and then dazzled as the picturesque creations of those innards were illuminated by the sun that powered it. My enjoyment of the show was repeatedly interrupted as I was rudely reminded that I was under dressed for the whole show. The wind ushers kept bringing me back to my seat in the crater. Finally at about 7:00, the sun was up in the sky and our guides decided they were ready to torture their foreign guests with more walking. I didn’t understand what they were saying, but when they packed up their stuff and began walking away, I knew it was best that I followed them.
The descent down the peak of the volcano showed me all of the near death experiences we had been unable to see on the way up. Looking at the multitude of loose rocks and treacherous paths we had traveled upon it convinced me that it was best that we made this climb at night. Some of the paths were along the tops of steep cliffs where one slip could have ended the journey very prematurely. The next part of the descent was quite scary, but the incredible view and the need to get back to civilization kept me motivated. Volcanoes and mountaintops rose up all around us and valleys between them were a beautiful, lush green, unlike the moonscape that we were descending down from. The sides of the volcanoes were all ribbed making them look like nature’s own upside down coffee filters. Nature was all around us as birds sang and plants I had never knew existed grew before our eyes. The descent into the green valleys was not always the pleasurable nature walk I had hoped for, however. The loose ground made me slip and tumble many times as my weakened legs failed to support my weight. My knees were cut up on sharp stones as I tumbled time and time again throughout the three hour trip down.
As we came out of the forest at the completion of our journey we looked like an army of touristy zombies that had arisen from the earth. Our clothes were covered in the dirt from our many tumbles and our eyes were glazed over with the severe fatigue. I turned back to see view what we had climbed and was awe-struck at the site. From the view at the farm house where we now stood, the volcano looked enormous. It appeared as though it would be a two hour car ride to reach the top! It was clearly the most incredible journey in my life. We all congratulated each other on making it back without an emergency rescue team and climbed back into the van that drove us over from the hotel.
By the time I got back to my room it was about 12:00 noon and I was beat. I slept until 6pm that evening, and then went out for a quick dinner. I then wandered around town a little and then went back to bed until 8:00am the next day.
As if I hadn’t had my fill already, the next day brought me to one of the man made wonders of the world, Borobudur, the largest Buddhist temple in existence. The peace and tranquility that I expected was shattered as the temple was swarming with tourists. From where I stood, it looked like giant anthill that had just been disturbed as it pulsated with movement. Little had been done to preserve the tranquility of the holy grounds as the area around it appeared more like a low budget amusement park than a Buddhist retreat for reflection. All the noise from chatty tourists and children screaming took away from the mystery and magic the place might have once possessed. If the spirit of the great Siddhartha ever visited this place he would need two months of spiritual retreat afterwards to regain his inner peace. But as touristy as it was I was able to find the occasional place where I could stand alone for a quick moment and become entranced in the mysticism of the place. I was also awestruck at the incredible amount of work it took to put the temple together. I stood surrounded by thousands of years of ancient history and culture.
I met many Indonesians nationals there as they all wanted to take pictures with me. I never really understood this, but I assumed that they didn’t meet too many Americans. I gracefully obliged, but still wonder to this day if I’m not some poster child for a “We Hate Tourists” dartboard campaign. Weirder yet, they wanted to be video taped by me. My home video looks like an Indonesian year book with everyone having their few seconds on video! I was also pulled in by a few school groups who asked me to sit down and talk with them in English for a while so that they could practice. I must have given my address to a hundred little Indonesian boys and girls, but never heard from a one.
After sharing the day with so many friendly, curious people I left for the airport. My weekend getaway to Yogyakarta had come to an end. I arrived at the tiny-weenie air strip where you have to walk out on the runway to board a plane and took off to return to Jakarta. As the plane ascended into the sky I took one last look at the lush green volcano paradise I had been privileged to explore and thanked God. I thanked him for blessing me with such wonderful beauty and an experience I would never forget and then I thanked him for watching over me so that I could live through it!