We woke up with the sunset and got in a quick breakfast of tea, toast, and jelly. We met up with our tour guide who spoke okay English. He showed us a map in the hotel of where we were going. Let's do some brief history to make this all make sense. A very long time ago, there was one HUGE volcano in the middle of the strait. Its about a 2 hour boat ride (with double motors) from Carita, so the volcano is literally in the middle of nowhere in the ocean. This huge volcano exploded and created 3 giant volcano's. The infamous 1883 explosion occurred, the largest volcanic eruption ever recorded by man that was heard almost around the world. The 1883 volcano (the one of the three that actually erupted) was split in half and destroyed the other two, leaving itself and three other volcano islands around. In 1923, a new island volcano surfaced, the volcano they now call Krakatoa. It grows at an amazing 3-4 cm PER DAY and is not around 620m above the water. This volcano remains the most active, giving off almost nightly shows of fire explosions and lava flung into the air. Its about 95% volcanic rock on the island with a small mini forest on the far south side that doesn't get affected from the eruptions as much. The rest of the volcano islands are less active with much more vegetation on them.
We boarded a small boat with our guide, me and Alma, and 2 other helpers and started on the 2 hour journey into the middle of the ocean. We started the tour by coming to an idol and circling the small Krakatoa volcano. There was smoke coming out the top and vents in the sides. The whole volcano is stained with sulfur deposits, giving its slopes a striped look of white sulfur on the black volcanic rock. The majority of the shoes was jagged hardens lava formations from the hot stone hitting the cooler ocean. The small part of the island by the jungle was made up of black sand. The water around here was the most perfect water in the history of the ocean (I Really believe this). The shallow ocean floor immediately near the islands was not sand, it was rock. This kept the water from getting murky from all of the sand floating around in the ocean so it was perfectly clear. The water near Krakatoa had a neat dark teal look, as it was floating over black, not white, sand.
There was pumice floating in the surf when we left the boat and one the shore of Krakatoa. The island is like one big slope until you reach the crater. There is a smaller hill very near the top, but a safe enough distance away to got be in danger of the sulfur or smoke. We started through the mini jungle and onto a hill of volcanic sand which was very steep and hard to climb. We reached the top of the hill and over the other side was all the sulfur and craters. Since we were about 600m up, we had an amazing view of all the other volcanic islands around us. We left down another side, allowing us to get close enough to the sulfur to feel its effects and start coughing, it was a little cool haha One the way back , we saw one of the few animals that live on this island, the monitor lizard. This lizard looks like a baby kimono dragon, with the same creepy look and walk and quite large. Half of its tail was bitten off, the guide saying it probably got attacked by the other predator on the island, a python...
We got back onto our boat and headed to the 1883 volcanic island. One half was literally cut in half, with its cheer cliff from the top on one side and gentler slope with trees on the other. The cliff half had a large crevice going right down the middle. We took the boat to the slope side where the coral reefs were. When we threw in the anchor, you could actually SEE the coral specifics from the boat, a good 1-2m above the coral. The water was SO clear, since once again, the coral grew on the rock, not the sand, so you could see everything. We spent the next hour or so snorkeling around. We saw eels and tons of fish, a healthy reef with no damage to it. This place was obviously not a tourist place and it was very healthy and maintained by nature. It was the most beautiful water/reef I have ever seen!
Unfortunately, we had a night train to catch in Jakarta to take us to the next destination, so we had to leave in the afternoon to made it back in time. We finished our lunch of shrimp friend rice, egg, and friend chicken, and took a nap while we finished our 2 hour journey back to shore. Our guide told us about how his grandfather was living in Carita during the 1883 explosion. Everybody took refuge in the mountains, which are right on the coast, and had to live there for three months before it was safe enough to come back to their homes, which were all destroyed. The drive back was pretty uneventful. We got to see Carita and the other beach towns for over an hour in the daylight, since we were stuck in traffic as they were repaving part of the roads and nobody wants to listen to the traffic guys so we just sat there for a while.... there were cows and SO many goats and sheep wandering around, it made for good window amusement while we were stuck there. We saw a good amount of rice patty fields. Something I also noticed, so the rice in Vietnam was different than any rice I've had in the US or SE Asia, its much smaller grains and harder. They served that same type of rice in Indonesia as well, which I wonder what it is....
We made it to the train station with 1.5 hour to spare. Our guide told us we had to check in an hour before so we left the train station to wander around their National Independence Square that bordered the station. Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, had a large park with a huge Washington monument-like structure in the middle. There were SO many people, playing soccer, flying kites, and just sitting and realizing. I almost walked into the men's bathroom, making the wrong guess on which Indonesian word meant women, which now I won't forget, wanita. There were lots of groups of kids/teenagers who wanted to say hi, seeming like they wanted to practice their English. Oh, something I forgot to mention. We are like the ONLY white people here. We saw absolutely NO other Caucasians in Carita or Jakarta and only about 10 TOTAL in Yogya. This really isn't a tourist place. So, given that fact, we got lots of Hi Misses! and Hello how are yous shouted from groups of boys who all giggled when we responded.
We went into the train station to grab some food. We ordered pizza, but some other Waiter took mine accidentally and gave it to another person, which sucked because it was the last pizza they had. We realized this, but our waiter was pacing around the restaurant, casting us glancing, obviously upset and didn't want to tell us what happened ,poor guy! Alma got her pizza, which was cheese over ketchup on bread. Not bad.... lol
We went to the train, and was told we couldn't board until exactly when it arrived, at 8pm. So we attempted to get on the Internet, which was slower than dial up, and just stood around for the train. A police man came up to me while I was standing in the middle of the station waiting for Alma in the rest room. I could see he wanted to see if I was up to no good, being a foreigner standing in the middle of a station alone with a huge bag pack, but once I told him what I was doing, he wanted to teach me some Indonesia words, he was very nice. We got onto the train, which were all like airport seats, and tried to fall asleep during our 8 hour trip across into central Java to Yogyakarta.
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