We can say that the seventh day in Indonesia was logistically flawless: from Bali we traveled to Surabaya, stopping at the Jakarta airport, after which a private taxi driver took us in a couple of hours near the village of Putus, where we stayed one night near the protected area of ​​the Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park.

The solution of the private driver (which we organized from Italy in conjunction with the Bromo Jeep visit) was more congenial for us due to the great time saved, preferring it to the train stopping at Probolinggo + the bus.

We arrived in Putus in the late afternoon, just in time to cover ourselves with the most suitable clothes (since Bromo is at an altitude above 2000 meters, the temperature can drop to a few degrees above zero), have dinner and go immediately to bed. At 2 AM we were already waiting for our guide who led us on foot to a parking lot full of giant off-road vehicles, getting into one of these, a red Toyota.

From Putus we reached Mount Penanjakan (2770 meters high), on which there was the most beautiful vantage point to enjoy the arrival of dawn.

After completing the last part of the journey on foot (about ten minutes) we arrived at a brisk pace ahead of the other people, allowing us to choose one of the "front row" positions.

You must know that this is one of the most visited places in all of Indonesia, and that everyday thousands of tourists from every corner of the planet meet at dawn, as if this greeting to the volcano were an ancient and millennial ritual absolutely to be fulfill.

Under a beautiful starry sky that we are no longer used to, all the people were waiting for the most magical moment, the arrival of light.

A light that was first weak, then more and more alive, gradually began to illuminate the caldera of the volcanoes, returning one of the most grandiose natural spectacles on our planet: in front of our eyes, while a dense morning fog cleared more and more, from an expanse of almost lunar sand the characteristic isolated cones of the volcanoes were peeking out, colored by pink and orange dawn, with the prominent Semeru more distant and with the puffing Bromo, almost as if he were sulking from the continuous photographs.

After this indelible memory we returned to our 4X4 which later, with some amusing jolt in the middle of the black ash desert, took us to the second stop, about half an hour's walk from the top of Bromo.

At an even faster pace we reached the top, overtaking many improvised walkers in flip-flops, and as a reward the volcano welcomed us with the unmistakable and almost unbreathable smell of sulfur.

Some (fortunately few) were walking along the crest of the cone, but we strongly advise against doing it as it is very dangerous.

Before retracing our steps and resuming two more flights that would have brought us to the province of Yogjakarta, we stopped for a well-deserved breakfast of champions based on nasi goreng, which we still miss sometimes today.