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| Gunung Bromo is an active volcano lying at the center of the Tengger Massif, a spectacular volcanic landscape and one of the most impressive sights in Indonesia. The massive Tengger crater stretches 10km across and its steep walls plunge down to a vast, flat sea of lava sand. From the crater floor emerges the smoking peak of Gunung Bromo, the spiritual center of the highlands. This desolate landscape has a strange end-of-the-world feeling. Bromo is the best known peak, but it is only one of three mountains that have emerged within the caldera of the ancient Tengger volcano, and Bromo is flanked by the peaks of Batok (2440m) and Kursi (2581m). Further south the whole supernatural moonscape is overseen by Gunung Semeru (3676m), the highest mountain on Java and the most active volcano in these highlands. Legend has it that the great Tengger crater was dug out with just half a coconut shell by an ogre smitten with love for a princess. When the king saw that the ogre might fulfil the task he had set, which was to be completed in a single night, he ordered his servants to pound rice and the cocks started to crow, thinking dawn had broken. The coconut that the ogre flung away became Gunung Batok, and the trench became the Sand Sea, and the ogre died of exhaustion. | |||
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