I met Alberto, a Spanish traveler in Jogja. I was searching for an express tour to see what East Java had to show in terms of Volanoes. I could have do it on my own, like a badass but after reading a lot of advices on Google from people who did it in the past, I realise that this time, an agency would be more than welcome. It really looked like a big hassle and it seems to costs more to do it on your own than with a tour.

I swallowed my pride and went to see few places around my hostel to compares the packages. I decided to do the same than Alberto because it proposed to do two sunrises over two different volcanoes in a very short time, because they were giving a really nice Javanese fan if you choose the two nights / three days tour and because even if I had met Alberto for few minutes, I had a good feeling about this guy and I knew it could be great to live travel things with a dude like him. And once again, I trusted my intuitions and I was right. Alberto revealed to be a really cool, sensitive, funny and smart travel buddy.

  
We spent the first day in a minivan, get to know the group who was travelling with us and trying to rest before the big hikes. The first one was Mount Bromo, a volcano who was right now awake. How lucky we were! I’ve never thought that I would be able to see a show by Mother Nature like that in my life.

  
The next day, we woke up at 3am. Let me tell you that I didn’t take any shower. I just jumped in my converses, put my big jumper on and twisted two scarves around my shoulders. They packed five of us in a small jeep (because Indonesia is still south east Asia and why putting only three people in a place made for three people if we can put two more inside?) and we start climbing a mountain in the dark cold night.

  
If you believe in ghosts, you’ll see a lot of them along the road there. The energy is absolutely incredible in Java, specially in the countryside. If you open your sixtieth sense, you’ll feel the spirits floating around in the thick fog surrounding the small houses. There is an electric and tense vibe that was highlight by the cold and the fact we were tired from a short night.

  
When we reached the top, a vision that I’ll never forget appears… In front of millions of stars, a gigantic, terrifying, splendid dragon made of ashes and smoke was elevating slowly in volutes from a solid and perfectly shaped black volcano. 

  
I remember being so surprised and amazed that Alberto and I couldn’t talk neither breath for few minutes. We started to draw our cameras to shoot this absolute beauty of Nature, cutting the silence between each long exposures by some “Oh.My.God”.

  
It looked unreal. It was so fantastic and incredible that we didn’t know if we were in a movie or if it was the real life. And then we felt it… This deep muffled sound coming from the ground. Earth was grounding. Earth was singing. The lyrics were about love and connection, about passion and fate. The vibrations pierced our hearts… It was slow and exciting at the same time, like a slow motion of the most beautiful second of your life, that you can repeat until you get bored of it. 

  
And then the sun decided to add to the scenery some colors that were too perfect. It was nearly too much, we couldn’t believe in what we were living anymore. At the very right moment when you think it couldn’t be more incredible than it is, the sky flares up in your back and warm the big dragon with pink and oranges bright nuances. Should I add that the sky was still full of stars?

  
It happened few times during this trip, to feel connected to the present. To the NOW. In these moments, it was like I could discover the real world again with my children eyes. It was like I forgot how to see things but I was able to reach the truth and be amazed by every little things again. I accepted this gift with joy and I dived in these moments with delectations. I always felt lucky and grateful to be at the right place at the right moment and be able not only to use my sense to enjoy life, but also to use my feelings to get to know the essence of things.  

  
This morning, I am sure that the people here felt it too. Love. Love in its purest form was surrounding and irradiating us. Love was transcending every atoms.

   
 
Everything made sense: it was around but it was inside of us too. It connected everything: us to each other, the song of the volcano to the beats of our hearts, the bright pink light of the sunrise to the fresh air on our skin.
Love was the compassion and the acceptance, the joy of life and the explosion of happiness erupting from everybodies’ hearts.
Us, the luckiest on earth, while we were in total admiration of this volcano named Bromo, we were given the simplest and most beautiful lesson ever. 

  
Maybe you could acceed to this state of mind with meditation or by praying or by usinganother transcendental technic, but I swear that if you let yourself the chance to open your eyes, you will need half a second in front of this natural phenomenon to be in transe. It was a fast lift from the material world to a spiritual space. 

 Just for these few hours spent in front of Bromo the Magnificent, I would sacrify again and again million of materials things. I must say that this was one of my favorite moment. At least in my top 10! (Maybe top 5…)