I saw heaven this morning. It was beautiful. We woke up at 3 am and got into a jeep that would take us to the base. At 4 am, we started to climb. We hadn’t eaten properly in 24 hours and our bodies were shutting down. But we kept going until we reached the top of the viewpoint. Then we waited.

4:45am, the first ray of morning light appeared. As the light became brighter, our view became clearer. We were overlooking a valley of volcanoes. If that wasn’t jaw dropping enough, two of the volcanoes were erupting. The valley below was called Valley of Sand. And it was. A thick layer of fog, sand and ash that made it look like we were on top of clouds.

When we had absorbed as much beauty as we could, we began our decent. I was able to pay a guy ~$1.20 to ride his pony down the mountain. We got back in the jeep and we drove through the valley. We reached the base of Mount Bromo and began to climb.

Little did we know that our climb was leading us to the crater of the erupting volcano. Harmony and I, tired from the lack of food and the previous climb, decide to take a pony up the mountain to the midpoint. The stairs up. The mountain had been covered by ash from the massive eruption in March. Did I mention that it was raining ash?

We finally reached the top and looked down upon the smoking crater. We were peering into the direct entrance to the centre of the earth. We even felt the earth shake and heard the core rumble as fresh ash emerged. It was the fresh eruption that motivated us to move on.

We climbed back down and into the valley. To top off the day, I bargained with a man to let me gallop his pony around the valley. He agreed and I raced that pony to my heart’s content with a scenery of volcanoes behind me.

I have never seen anything with so much natural beauty in my life. The world is full of natural beauty and it is man’s job not to spoil it with material things.