Merapi Sunrise

20 August 2010

Waking at 3:30am, we were greeted with hot coffee and ready to head out on a short trek to view Gunung Merapi at dawn. In the past, this volcano was climbed on a regular basis but a handful of minor and major eruptions since the early 1990’s now make climbing more difficult, and actually illegal in some cases. As we finished our coffee and a short a briefing about our trek to Merapi, we headed out around 4am. As we walked through the small town of Kaliurang, we were surprised to see so many people out. But my tired mind slowly remembered that it was Ramadan and those who want to eat before sundown must rise before dawn. Some of these folks were heading to pray, as the call to prayer goes out around 4:30am every day. I usually enjoy this melodic chant from under the covers as it wakes me up and softly lulls me back to sleep. This morning, we are walking uphill and the echo of the Imam chanting in prayer set my mind at ease on our dark, sleepy walk.

As we trekked onwards in the dark it took most of my concentration to ensure that my feet stayed on the path as they stumbled over the roots and rocks on the trail. Finally, dawn arrived and we began to anticipate our first view of Gunung Merapi! Sometime after 5:30am we stopped at our first viewpoint to enjoy and photograph the early morning glow on the smoking giant in the distance. As we headed onwards we saw that we were not alone on the lower slopes of Merapi, as women from nearby villages come here to cut grass for their animals in town.

When we reached the final viewpoint and enjoyed the view, our guide began to tell us stories about the mountain itself, the local people, and all of the natural and anthropogenic disasters on the volcano. Besides being intrigued by the threat of pyroplastic flows and the inevitable blow-out – this volcano is similar structurally to Krakatoa and would threaten millions of lives in a large eruption – we were very interested to hear the local mythology surrounding the mountain. The local people believe that they live in a kingdom ruled by Mt Merapi. Because they view Merapi as a benevolent king, they do not believe that he would hurt them. They continue to live within a few kilometers of this smoking beast and, according to our guide, without fear of being consumed by a lava flow. He also said that even if someone from the village was killed by the volcano their family members would be more likely to say that he had gone to “the kingdom and gotten a new job” than to say that he had died.

Of the other disasters that this jolly man imparted to us, the most colorful was of two aid workers sent to evacuate the village during an eruption in 2006. After unsuccessfully evacuating the villagers (for reasons explained above) the aid works ran for cover in a bunker designed to protect against lava flows. Our guide said, and I quote, “They both die. One like satay, one like soup”. This puzzled us but he soon explained that one was found on the cement floor of the bunker while the other had run for cover in the bathtub. You can guess the rest. He also claimed that they were the only two to die during this eruption. This was such a funny way of explaining such a sad event that we giggled a little guiltily before he moved on to tell us about the tourists who had died climbing the mountain or broke their legs trying.

We arrived back at Vogels Hostel at about 8:30am and enjoyed a quick breakfast before heading back down to Yogyakarta. We’ve really been on the move! Tomorrow we start out early for a 12 hour trip to Gunung Bromo, yet another volcano. Indonesia is chalk full of them! After a few days at Bromo we head to the Ijen Plateau for more volcanoes and good coffee before heading on to Bali, Flores, and Lombok.