Amazing volcanic landscape

We are up before the alarm and ready for our pick-up at 3.30am. A small Toyota jeep picks us up along with two very cheery Dutch girls. We pick up one other couple and are on our way, along with many other jeeps. Our first stop is Mount Penanjakan which is the view point for sunrise. Its not a long walk from the traffic jam of jeeps and we wait with a few hundred other people. We're lucky as its an amazing sunrise - apparently its been cloudy here for the last few days. As we head back to our jeep we are treated to this amazing volcanic landscape.

A short ride and we reach Bromo. Its takes about 20 mins to walk up to the top and there are stairs for the last bit. Many people take a pony ride as far as the stairs but we walk it easily enough. There are lots of people here but not nearly as many as for the sunrise so that's good.

Mount Bromo is amazing. You can peer straight down into the smoking volcano and, apart from being slightly choked by the sulphur fumes we love it. We take a walk around the top of the crater and manage to get completely away from the crowds. We take a short cut back to the jeep and skid down the black sands and we're back at the guest house having breakfast by 8.30am. 

We leave at 10am and go back to Probolinggo where we take a mini van to our next destination. Its a long trip as we're so tired and we arrive at our homestay in Sempol just after dark. A quick dinner then bed at 7pm as we've got a 1am pick-up tomorrow ... !