Posts Tagged "volcanoes"

One of our main reasons for going to the Ethiopia was to see the semi-permanent lava lake at night on the Erta Ale. Erta Ale is about 600 meters high and is located near the north east of Ethiopia. It’s actually very close to the law-less country Eritrea. It is notable for holding the longest-existing lava lake, present since the early years of the twentieth century (1906). Volcanoes with lava lakes are very rare: there are only six in the world (Erta Ale, Ethiopia – Ambrym, Vanuatu – Mount Erebus, Ross Island, Antarctica – Kīlauea, Big Island, Hawaii [there are actually two in Hawaii: Halemaʻumaʻu and Pu’u O’o craters] – Mount Nyiragongo, Democratic Republic of the Congo). The largest one is the Nyiragongo but is now...

Like Burma, I’m going to split my trip to Ethiopia in several posts. If you are not familiar with the Danakil depression, I have included a Google map of the area below. It’s in the northeast region of Ethiopia, in the semi-autonomous zone called the Afar region. The Afar region is named after the Afar tribe that administers the region. However the Afar tribe is split between Eritrea and Ethiopia, causing people to cross between the two countries relatively easily, despite the border with Eritrea being technically closed (Ethiopia and Eritrea were at war in 2000). As you may know, Eritrea is not a safe place. This region is relatively high risk for foreign travelers, as stated by the UN, which recommend not to travel there. Traveling there is a long...

This is the third part of my Indonesia trip (read part 1 and part 2). The program was to climb Semeru (an even harder hike than Merapi). Unfortunately a combination of a tired knee (really painful) and failing hiking shoes made me skip the hike. Instead I spent two days resting while Stephane and Christophe climbed Semeru. The view from Semeru was fantastic but the climb was grueling. Both Stephane and Christophe skipped dinner that evening and slept for 12 hours straight. Durring those two days, I explored the town, taking pictures of the local market and local taxi. The goal of the trip, the main reason I went anyway, was to photograph the volcano called Kawah-Ijen. It’s not a lava flowing volcano, but still a very spectacular one. On the way to...

This is the second part of my travel to Indonesia (read part 1). We left Yogyajarta for the North face of the Merapi. It was time to get serious about hiking. The second volcano on the menu was the Merapi (2,930 meters), our base camp was at 1000m. The plan was to get to the summit one hour before sunrise (5am local time). It’s a very popular hike among locals, who take two days to climb it. Unfortunately, we choose to do it in one long day. We left our camp at 10:30pm and we hiked the entire path in the dark. We had a local guide, who was over 60 years old, chainsmoked at each break and was wearing rubber boots all the way to the top. I, however, had light high-tech hiking boots, was reasonably fit but carrying a 25 pounds (12 kg) camera bag and tripod....

Four months ago, I went to Indonesia to photograph some of the most spectacular volcanoes on the planet. Indonesia has over 150 volcanoes and 127 of those were active (in 2012). My plan was to visit only five on the island of Java; they were Ana Krakatau, Merapi, Bromo, Semeru and Kawah-Ijen. In this first part, I will focus on the first couple days and the visit of Anak Krakatau and the temple of Borobudur. Indonesia is composed of 17,500 islands, the biggest islands are Sumatra, Celebes and Java. The island the most known  is probably Bali. In this trip we spent 14 days on Java and only 3 on Bali. Indonesian volcanoes erupt regularly (as Mount Kelud did a couple of days ago). I had no experience climbing active volcanoes so I went with a travel agency that...