Saturday, June 13, 2009

Ijen Crater (2,300m)

"The biggest Kaldera in Indonesia"Ijen crater is an active one which is combination of Mt. Raung and Mt. Ijen. There are two main routes leading to the crater. The first route is from Banyuwangi to the south -west through Jambu village. By mini bus from Banyuwangi , we go to Licin village and by another mini bus go to Jambu village , as the last village .

From the Jambu village , we start trekking by passing Coffee and Clove Plantation along the way to a splendid tropical forest. This way is used daily by the workers to carry sulfur stores from ijen crater, so the path is quite wide and good . In the middle of the journey, we will find cold water from a small river . It will takes 4 hours before getting st a prairie . There are three locked huts and some water from rain. We need 1 and half hours to reach to the crater . On the way , there is a small office managing sulfur mining , in which we can buy drinks or cigarettes.


The second route is from Bondowoso to south east passing Wonosari and Ijen Kaldera which is the biggest Kaldera in Indonesia. From Bondowoso , just straight to wonosari - sukosari and continued to sempol. Sempol is the nearest village to Ijen Crater and there is no inn there.

We will takes 5 hours passing beautiful savanna , to reach the three locked huts above from sempol . We cant rent a car from Wonosari or Sempol to go to Pal Tuding to minimized time as mini bus rarely passes there. It will spend another 2 hours , trekking from Pal Tuding to the three locked huts.

Ijen Crater forms a lake with boiling light green color water whose sides strongly blows sulfuric gas . Ijen Crater is one of the most fascinating panoramas in Java island.