Merapi!

The day after the "Temples route" in Jogjakarta, we decided to climb Merapi Volcano, situated on the border of Central Java and Jogjakarta regency. Merapi  (2930 masl) is the most active volcano in Indonesia and the most dangerous because of its proximity to the big city Jogjakarta. 
In bahasa indonesia "merah" means "red" and "api" means "fire". Then, I can say I climbed "Redfire Volcano"!!

Sunset from New Selo

From Jogjakarta we took a bus to Magelan and we stopped half-way there to take an ankota (small bus) to Selo or New Selo (the village on Merapi's foot).

We had the contact of one friend of my friend from Borobudur because to climb Merapi you need a guide.  We met him in New Selo and we went together to his house sharing time with his family, talking about their experiences when Merapi erupted in 2010 and also a few months ago... 

At 12 in the night we started climbing Merapi and we arrived at the top around 4:30 am to see the sunrise. 

From the top of Merapi. In the left side, Mount Merbabu

At the first moment I thought "OK, This is really hard, Mariate... but maybe only the first ten minutes... You can do it!!" After one hour the way was a little bit better and then, suddenly, it started to get worse and worse.. The last hour I was climbing like a wall full of sand, full of small stones and volcanic rocks (where if you don't want to fall down it's better not to catch of them) that easily break.

I made one step and I went back more than a half of that step that I already did. Crazy, right?

But finally, we made it and it was really worthwhile. 

Behind me, the crater

Here comes the sun...

I was very tirded and I didn't take many pictures but you can imagine the views:

Imagine you are on the top of a volcano, behind you there is the crater giving out a lot of smoke, a few meters under you there are a lot of clouds, onn your left side you find the top of Mount Merbabu and in front of you the sunrise and the sun! 

After enjoying those views, eating some cookies and  taking off all the warm clothes that we were wearing going up because of cold temperatures, we went down and it was really funny! How can it be possible that the thing that a half an hour before was scaring you, after that time was funny? I'll explain it to you: we went down doing like sand-board but without a board. I was floating!! 

Just we arrived down, we took a car and we went to the terminal in Muntilan to take the bus back to Jogjakarta. 

In our hostel I died, completly. I slept like an angel! But the day after... I couldn't get down from the bunk bed! I had pain in all my body after Merapi! 

Merapi, me and the sun