For months the spectacular Canarian Island, El Hierro, has been under the spell of heavy volcanic activity and as we speak there are unconfirmed reports of a red glow under water near the so called “jacuzzi“. Seems there will be some extra land very soon!
The most popular diving area of the island, La Restinga, however has again been evacuated which must be a big blow to the diving community. I was there two years ago and was totally mesmerized by the place. Here are some photos from that trip (for Duikmagazine). Let’s hope things will calm down soon again.
If there’s one country that I can really recommend for a visit it’s got to be Indonesia. For our honeymoon we decided to take up an offer from a well-known travelcompany that we simply couldn’t refuse. Exciting as it was going to be my first (non-journalist) group travel ever and also my first time Asia. After having travelled half the world I somehow miraculously managed not to visit that huge part of the world. Something that I quite made up afterwards, travelling to Asia at least six times the next four years.
Java and Bali were going to be our destinations, the latter for diving, the first for round travel in two busses filled with us, tourists! Never figured group travel could be so much fun if you’re just lucky to hit the right combination of age, personalities and the amount of people travelling with you. We simply had a great time and one of the definite highlights of the trip was an old volcano called the Bromo [Google Earth].
It’s not a volcano as you’d normally see, it’s a small but highly active volcano which is situated in an unprecedented sandy area of almost ten square kilometers, the remnants of an even older volcano that blasted itself into history many, many millions of years ago. Seeing the sunrise on that old craters edge is one of the most popular highlights of Java and attracts countless tourist that walk up there very late at night (or better: very early in the morning).
So there we are at 03:30, after a wee night of sleeping getting our tired heads up a steep hill while beeing surrounded by zillions of Indonesian salesmen and women. Hats, umbrella’s, raincoats: guess it must rain here a lot because the majority of little shops are into that sort of stuff. Food is also highly available but who needs something to eat when you’re still in sleep-mode?
As high as the expectations so low is reality: the platform where we wait for the sun to come up over the crater rim is huge and packed with tourists, oh: that’s us then. Hundreds of people from all over the world have their camera ready and wait for the sun to burst through the fog. Which, sadly for us, manages not too. Leaving us with a half-baked sunrise and a good forty minute walk back down the road where a cup of hot soup awaits us. OK, now that’s a highlight!
Actually, the sunrise is nice but it’s the crater itself that’s way more interesting. A nice carride over the massive rim into the flat area where the actual Bromo active volcano resides. And by active, I really mean active: just short over eight months after our visit it suddenly went beserk and killed two tourists and injured five! But the horseride to the edge is amazing. Still can’t understand why all these horsemen compete eachother so massively. All looked like they haven’t got a dime to spare. Guess, if they worked together they could set some overall higher prices and actually make a bit of an income… there’s probably a reason but I felt sorry for them as the competition for tourists looked pretty nasty.
The sight into the grey and yellow crater is one to behold. Smoke still bellowing and a tribe of people walking around in it to catch the flowerofferings that people can buy for a few cents after which they throw them into the volcano. Good bit of recycling I suppose!
All in all a sight that should be high on the list of things to do and see in Java, definitely on of our many highlights and a true View of The World.
One doesn’t stumble into little islands very often. Certainly not tropical ones, but some time ago I had the pleasure of actually doing so. On route while doing a major feature on Caribbean Island Hopping (which later won me this award) we had a stop in Saba [check in Google Earth], a tiny speck of green in a huge ocean of stunning blue.
It’s a little known island which is great because not too many visitors actually manage to get there. It’s so small, the Tourism Office usually knows exactly how many tourists are on the island at any given time. Very tiny indeed then, which makes it a fantastic place to beat the crowds while still being able to do some decent exploring.
Besides being a very small, the way to get there is quite unusual as too. Saba sports the smallest commercial airstrip in the world and at a length of a mere 400 meters it’s a sight to behold! Landing, while sitting behind an open cockpit of a Twin Otter [Youtube, 250.000 views in one year], is quite something as the only space to build the strip was a stretch of lava at the far end of the island. Yes, Saba is volcanic and that is also one of the main attractions: Mt.Scenery, an old volcanic dome which makes for a fantastic climb.
Going up through the lush green forest of the island one notices that the volcano blocks the moist air from the sea which makes for a lot of clouds and plenty of hillside rain! You need to be lucky to catch a good view because one minute it can be crystal clear, a minute later fog is all you will see. The good thing is that all off the rain makes this stunning island with a green color rarely seen in the Caribbean. Fortunately the inhabitants were smart enough to insist on a rigorous building code: all the houses are tiny cottages built in one style. You won’t find a more pittoresq place in this area easily.
The climb up the volcano isn’t really tough but the heat makes it strenuous during the hour and a half long ascent (1064 steps to be precise). But the higher one gets the more extreme the plantation gets as well: lush trees with huge leaves make you feel like you’re walking in a Jurassic Park setting but then, when you reach the top, the view is just unbelievable. This island is a pure tropical gem in the Caribbean seas, simply stunning and if you’re lucky the skies stay clear long enough to enjoy the view from all sides. Definitely worth the title of a Favorite View of the World!
As I’m working on a series of panoramic stitched images from Mt.St.Helens I figured it would be nice to upload a Quicktime Panorama I made when we reached the top. Quite a climb on the winter route with 6 hours of going up and 4 hours going down. Unbelievable experience though as the mountain, that blew in 1980 with a force of 500 Hiroshima atom bombs, is still rumbling and smoke comes out of the crater.
Walking through the snow proved not as easy either as it was getting quite slushy as late in the season (May), fortunately we had some proper boots with us that we had to rent in order to be able to rent crampons. Annoyingly heavy we felt quite stupid having to carry those along but they proved to be good insulation from the wet snow and provided quite a bit of tracking too. Good thing we got them anyway.
This is defintely a route a person should climb, the last bit was a bit tough but boy was it worth the view (and we got lucky it all cleared up nicely).
More info on this trip here on my site. Panoramic images coming soon!
A very nice openingsspread in an article on Amazing Journeys in 2Magazine. Image taken at the crater rim of Washington State’s (USA) Mt.St.Helens. See more of this amazing hike at this older post.
One of my favorite places in the USA has got to be the State of Oregon: from hundreds of miles of unspoiled beaches with their impressive dunes to snowcapped Mountains and old volcanoes: hardly any state in the US has so much to offer in terms of the great outdoors. Rivers, deserts, endless forests and large numbers of picture perfect lakes await the interested visitor. But the true gem is found underground, near the little town of Bend nature left behind lava-tunnels from volcanic eruptions that happened tens to hundred thousands years ago.
Lava, as most people quickly realize is somewhat on the hot side of the temperature scale. One can bake an egg on the hood of the car in a hot desert but one can bake both (egg and car) on a fresh stream of lava!
Something else is interesting about those (mostly undergournd) lava-streams: the outside cools quicker than the inside (something similar happens with you bowl of soup, although I wouldn’t recommend eating hot lava though). So while the outside quickly cools down to rock again, the inside slowly releases its temperature and when it does: it shrinks. After a while you have a partly filled in tube of lava, the bottom of which is flat and makes for a nice walk if you happen to find a tunnel like that. This website expains it quite nicely by the way.
In the state of Oregon, a few of those tunnels have been so well preserved one can still walk through them. That is, with a professional guide and a helmet of course!
So, how to capture these on film or memory card? It’s pitch-black inside and the helmet lamps are just sufficient to see where you put your feet (after all these years the floor is not as flat as it used to be). A tripod and the combined helmet lights were more than plentiful for some good pictures. Thirty second exposures and having my “models” stand still for that period of time did the job and they got some time to soak in the surroundings. Everybody happy!
So, when in the neighborhood make sure to get in contact with the guys from Wanderlust Tours as they are the only licensed guides for these tunnel complexes.
Oh, and do bring some Mint Lifesavers. You’ll see them spark in the absolute darkness when you bite them hard!
Today in the Sp!ts, the second largest newspaper in the Netherlands (500.000 copies), two articles: one on climbing Mt.St.Helens and one on Scuba diving Vancouver Island’s Barkley Sound, also known as the Emerald Paradise.
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