Bromo 2010

Hello everybody...

My family and I love traveling so much. We have to go on a long vacation at least once every year. This time, I want to talk about my trip to Bromo in 2010, and I was about 9 year old at that time. It was a very magical place. The air was so fresh and the view was incredible. Now, I will show you as we go back in time.

We drove for hours from Solo to Malang, our first stop. We stayed at Santika Hotel Malang for 3 days. We did nothing, actually on the first day. We started our journey on the second day. We woke up early and quickly rushed to our car so we could watch sunrise on Bromo, but we woke up late, so we enjoy sunrise from our car. We arrived there at approx. 8 am.

The view

 I expected it to be cold, but actually, It was warm enough for me to open my jacket and tied it around my waist. We parked our car on (what the local people called) The Dessert. It wasn't like a normal dessert with yellow sand and camels everywhere, it was a wide-opened space with grey sands. 

Me with my cousins. Look at those clouds!

We hire a 4-wheeler Jeep and a driver to take us up. The road was so bumpy and there were 5 members of my family + a driver + low ceiling. Well, we bumped our heads over and over until we arrived at the landings. There were hundreds of Jeep with various color parked neatly in front of me.  The driver said if we want to climb to the top of the mountain, we have to walk or rent a horse. Well, as a true backpacker, I chose to walk, even though from our Jeep to the mountain was sooooo far away. I left my bag and begun to walk. Half way to the mountain, I spotted a big temple with high grey walls and steel fences surrounding it. 

After a long walk and shoes stuffed with cold sands, we finally arrived. But, we have to climb 350+ stairs to go up to the peak. As I said, I was 9 year old at that time and it was so crowded, but I was so excited to see the famous Bromo peak.

 From the distance, I could smell the sulfur and saw the white smoke rising up to the sky. After... well, 30 minutes climbing those forsaken stairs and tired legs, we did it. *I'm on top the world, yeah* I finally saw the famous peak with white, sulfuric smoke. I was so happy I just... love that place. 

The view from the peak

 The mountain got so crowded, so we decided to head down and continue our journey. The driver recommended us to go to the savanna, so we did. It was (once again) a very bumpy ride because of sand dunes and high grasses. In the middle of the ride, we saw a rock, a very big rock (bigger than the Jeep) that looked like a lion. We stopped there and took loads of pictures.

After approx. 20 pictures (My dad deleted half of it), we continued our journey. And in seconds, voila! The savannah was right in front of us, with (what the local people called) the Teletubbies's hill. It actually looked like one, but bigger... and it has no secret doors or NuNu roaming around. Just us, and an Ice cream seller. All of us bought one and stay there for so long I wanted to live there forever. 

Taking pictures with "The Teletubbies" hahaa

We continued our journey and the driver took us to the most popular photo-taking spot. It was so beautiful. I could see Bromo, Pangrango, the Teletubbies's hill, Savannah, all of it. We took loads of pictures (again) and my father had to deleted half of it (AGAIN). 

It was already 1 o'clock and we decided to go back to our car and headed Malang

to go find some lunch. And we spent our last day eating Ice creams, fried ducks, listening to old songs, and swimming.

It was a hell-a fun adventure and I can't wait to go to Malang once again and explore the rest of it. I'm afraid I have to stop right here, but I'll see you soon.

Nisa
p.s I took ALL of those pictures.