We are on our way from Yogja to Surabaya when the bus breaks down. There is a loud bang and before we know it, we are standing still at the side of the road. The tyre has exploded and we are positively in the Middle of Nowhere, Rural Java. As our fellow passangers one after another steps outside in the sizzling afternoon sun, we begin to realize we are probably stranded here for a while.
In a situation as such it is indeed immensely difficult to make much sense of what happends next (will there be a new bus, are we waiting here to repair this one, are we stuck here forever?) considering no one speaks the same language. After two long hours, just as E and H has disappeared around the corner to get us some food, the tyre is suddenly fixed and rapidly everyone starts entering the bus again. Oh shoot, will they leave without us? They are probably tired of waiting. So I start running back and forth, getting our backpacks back on the bus, calling on my friends to hurry up and making some sort of charades for the passangers to assure they will be here in less than a minute. I'm not sure my performance is very clear, but at least I get them to laugh and I reckon that is a beautiful thing after this long afternoon. As the bus starts rolling and we sit there laughing with these strangers I realize how it is all about the mindset.
This day could've been absolutely horrible but it is about how you choose to look at things. As they say, it's not the destination, but the journey.
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| Our petit crew watching the sun make her appearance. |
So we reach the NP of Mount Bromo on Friday morning. At one of the two food stalls we meet the Singaporeans Shariff and Resha. You know how in the Sims 2 they get this like little rush for a few hours after making a new friend? That's how we all felt after this meeting, a wee friend crush. We spent the evening wrapped up like penguins in our hostel blankets, passing ciggarettes and a bottle of gin and watching stars fall across the pitch black sky.
After only a few hours of sleep we rise again at 3:30am to begin hiking up to the look out point to enjoy the sunrise. We get surpassed by tonnes of big jeeps driving hoards of tourists up the top. A bit stressed we try to walk faster, we don't want to miss the sun. Yet we seem to be amongst the first ones to reach the top of the look out point. Possibly because the last 25% of the hike is far too steep for any jeeps to travel, so at the end we are the ones surpassing everyone. At the top we purchase cuppa noodles to keep warm and sit there watching the sun slowly push the night away.
