I’ve been in Indonesia for a whole month, visiting 3 different islands and discovering many incredible places, but surely an amazing experience that I won’t never forget was the day I went to the Ijen volcano in the middle of Java island. I woke up very early, I took a motorbike rider with me and I went through the jungle withouth knowing what incredible adventure was awaiting for me!
The Ijen volcano complex is a group of composite volcanoes in the Banyuwangi Regency of East Java, Indonesia.
It is inside a larger caldera Ijen, which is about 20 kilometres wide. The Gunung Merapi stratovolcano is the highest point of that complex. The name "Gunung Merapi" means "mountain of fire" in the Indonesian language (api being "fire") : Mount Merapi in central Java and Marapi in Sumatra have the same etymology.
West of Gunung Merapi is the Ijen volcano, which has a one-kilometre-wide turquoise-coloured acidic crater lake. The lake is the site of a labour-intensive sulfur mining operation, in which sulfur-laden baskets are carried by hand from the crater floor. The work is paid well considering the cost of living in the area, but is very onerous.Workers earn around Rp 50,000–75,000 ($5.50–$8.30) per day and once out of the crater, still need to carry their loads of sulfur chunks ( unthinkable weights of 80-100kg! ) about three kilometers to the nearby Paltuding Valley to get paid.
The lake is recognised as the largest highly acidic crater lake in the world.It is also a source for the river Banyupahit, resulting in highly acidic and metal-enriched river water which has a significant detrimental effect on the downstream river ecosystem.
It’s defenetly one place on earth you shouldn’t miss visiting! For anyone interested in a visit to the Ijen volcano I have still few good friends willing to help you out to get there and have an incredible experience! Keep walking, keep shooting and never stop!
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