Krakatau Boom Boom
Full photo album: https://www.flickr.com/photos/131248719@N08/sets/72157650863773962/
The main trip to Jakarta (https://medium.com/signals-from-singapore/jakarta-e40525407ab2) was planned around a 36 hour round trip excursion to Krakatau (Krakatoa).
A brief history of Krakatau:
In 1883, Krakatau erupted with the force of 13,000 Little Boy atomic bombs and ejected 6 cubic miles of rock. It blew the Sunda Strait island apart and sent most of it under water. 20% of the original volcano was left as Rakata island (Mama as our guide called it). Anak Krakatau (Anak is Indonesian for child) surfaced in the 1930s and is the active volcano in the area today. Last erruption was 2012.
We got in a bus at 6am on Friday and got transported from Jakarta to Carita (beach town three hours away on the West coast of Java). We ate some quick food (fantastic as always) and hopped on a twin engine boat for a two hour roller coaster ride out to Anak Krakatau.
And then we saw the kid out the window.
Before landing, we snorkeled for a bit off of Rakata island where there were plenty of colorful coral, fish, a barracuda, and a fairly plump jellyfish.
And the first thing you notice is that the sand is pitch black.
We met some friends.
The driftwood was out of this world.
And the sand was so soft.
After walking around the island for a little bit, we began our walk up.
Along the way up, we began to see lava rocks and sulfur rocks that were ejected from the last couple eruptions (the freshest being 2012).
We weren’t allowed to climb to the actual top where the crater is, but the view from level 1 was beautiful (and sulfuric) enough. You could really feel it in your lungs!
All of a sudden then were tons of these little golden dragonflies everywhere as we watched the sun set over the side of Anak Krakatau.
We climbed down the mountain, built a fire, ate a delicious meal that our guides cooked up for us, and sat on the beach observing some of the most incredible stars I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any long exposure pictures. Alice did and maybe I’ll edit this post with a picture of hers sometime.
I slept on the beach under the stars, next to the ocean, and next to a fire. Woke up to the sunrise.
Restarted our fire from the warm ashes.
A monitor lizard joined our breakfast.
We took another ride around the volcano, snorkeled again, and boated back to Carita.
Our main guide for the trip was incredible (two others helped boat us out there, set up, and cook). He was hilarious, spoke perfect English other than his pronounciation of Volcano as “Pulcano,” which was amuzing every time. His “Krakatau Boom Boom” catch phrase gave the title of this blog post, and we owe him an incredible trip!
I’ve seen a lot of beautiful things up to this point in my life, but never have I seen so many together in such a short amount of time.
Coral reefs, colorful fish, beautiful islands, black sand, crazy driftwood, lava rocks, sulfur rocks, golden dragon flies, a smoking mountain, a sunset over islands, beautiful stars, sleeping next to the ocean, new wildlife, and a sunrise from where I was sleeping. All in 24 hours.
