Krakatoa!

A few weeks ago, Anggi (one of the local teachers at EF and my dear friend, in case you didn’t know yet) and I made our way to the Lampung province in the deep south of Sumatera to climb the active Anak-Krakatoa volcano.

Holy shit… It has propellers!

On this fateful Friday, Palembang’s airport was as it usually is. Anggi and I checked in, had some coffee and eventually made our way to our airplane. That’s when we found out it had propellers. Exciting!

(After we landed, I researched our plane and found out that the exact same model from the exact same airline had fatally crashed just a year before with 11 deaths as a result. But hey, at least we survived!)

Our death-trap

A warm welcome - the magnificent Bandar-Lampung Airport!

No food is no good

Anggi had arranged a driver (Erwin) to pick us up from Bandar-Lampung’s airport and take us where we wanted to go. We slowly made our way down to Kalianda (where we’d stay for the first night and from where we’d be able to go to Krakatoa) over terrible and treacherous roads. More excitement for me; Anggi wasn’t a fan. When we finally got to Kalianda, we were starving. Unfortunately, because of the national holiday that had given us our Friday off (Eid-ul Adha) no restaurant in sight was open. After a long, long time of driving around we finally found a place that served food. What a godsend. Along the way, we saw many a butchered animal, cut up alongside the road to be prepared for the big feast later.

Check-in and driving around

We checked into a too shabby hotel but decided it would make do for a night. After dropping our stuff, we got into Erwin’s car again who drove us to the place where we’d book our trip to Krakatoa for the next day. After that, off to the first beach. We were clearly not impressed (see below) and soon after made our way to the second beach. Somewhat better but still not what we were looking for. Nevertheless, we walked and talked a little bit. At night we made our way to Elty’s resort, basically the best place to stay in Kalianda but very pricy, to have our food. The food was good although they put sugar on my French fries (WTF?) and it took more than an hour to arrive. As you can see, food and disappointment went hand in hand on this day. Other than that, no complaints whatsoever!

Travel-partners in crime!

Early rise and shine!

At 7:30 in the morning, we reported for volcano duty at the pick-up place. There we met Gerhard, a German guy who was solo-travelling through the entire island of Sumatra and who would join us for the day. We chatted and I figured out Gerhard was actually a geologist, the perfect person to have on our trip because I was bursting with questions about volcanoes and other magical earth stuff.

We set off in our modest ‘speedboat’; the three of us, the captain and two crew members (one of which would guide us on the volcano itself). Bursting with excitement, we expected a 2, 2½ hour boat ride. Little did we know…

A nice start to the day, no?

Thickening clouds - an omen of what was to come.

Lost at sea. Literally.

The morning had started off cloudy and about an hour into our trip, the clouds started to thicken. Not too long after that, it started to rain in moderate amounts. Meh, no biggie, it is rainy season after all, so that was to be expected. However, the clouds thickened further and the rain came down in ever increasing amounts. Covering our belongings, we hoped it would end soon. It did not. Not too long after, all visibility had disappeared. All of it. We could see only 360 degrees of grey and sea. All land was out of sight while the rain and wild sea kept coming at us. For two hours we did not know where we were and neither did the captain and his crew! Because hey, who needs a compass on open sea? Certainly not that guy!
                I’ll be honest: I felt panicked and Anggi did too. It just seemed hopeless and to further our misery, the captain and his crew were speaking in a language that even Anggi couldn´t understand! Way to make us feel better, y´all. At one point, we had had enough and asked the captain to turn around. He convinced us we were close and by some miracle the clouds seem to slowly dissipate. It turned out we had actually gone too far and had to turn back to actually get to Krakatoa. A long story short, this was probably one of the worst moments in Indonesia. I cannot tell you the elation I felt when we finally set foot on Krakatoa´s black sand beach. Life was good again! 

Death-trap #2

Up, Up, Up – The Only Way Is Up!

After a short food break, we started our ascent. I had found my life force again and started asking Gerhard the first of about a million questions about volcanoes and shit while we made our way up. See the pictures and experience the amazingness secondhand!

The way up.

Notice the sudden stop of vegetation.

A recent fuming hole

A Lava Bomb. Dr. Evil, eat your heart out!

The composition of the smoke is somewhat different here, as evidenced by the blue shade.

And of course, the boat trip back to Kalianda was as smooth as a baby’s behind (hearsay, don’t know that for sure).

Meet Gerhard - our living and breathing Wikipedia when it came to volcanoes.

Our compass-less captain!

Back to Civilization

Anggi and I had already decided we wanted to go back to Kalianda after we returned from Krakatoa because, honestly, Kalianda is as boring as the average weekend of my students – and that says a lot! We found a decent hotel, had a proper dinner and talked about our experience that day, which I, for one will never forget. The next day we shopped, ate and relaxed in the city. Massage, pedicure – we know how to live well. 

Choo-choo! All aboard!

At night we made our way to BL’s train station, where our ride back to Palembang awaited us. Giddy about the prospect of a nighttime train ride, I settled into a reclining chair with pillow and blanket provided. But then one of Satan’s spawn appeared right next to me: a crying baby. FML. SFML (Super-Fuck-My-Life). Earplugs? Thankfully: Check!

However, this wasn’t all. Apparently, Indonesians have the habit of walking on the tracks so for the next 12 hours our train honked its massive horn as if it were prompted by a ‘Honk if you love Jesus’ bumper sticker that just wouldn’t disappear and my earplugs were no match. In conclusion, I did not get a lot of sleep, two hours at most – and I had a full day of teaching ahead of me.

 

Feeling like Ed Helms c.s. in The Hangover 1 and 2, we arrived at Palembang central and paid an exorbitant amount of money to get home (that’s what happens here if you’re white). After cooking lunch and napping, it was time to go back to school!

Needless to say, I apologize wholeheartedly for the quality of my teaching that day.

To Anggi: Thank you so much – at work or on a boat soaking wet thinking we’ll die, we are awesome!