Sulfur Souvenir
As Kawah Ijen has many visitors to come nowadays, offering a unique form of sulfur as a souvenir would benefit to the miners. A natural artistic form of sulfur comes from the sulfur melting drop and miners pull it carefully to get the stalactite like sulfur form. Often they also prepare the other forms by putting it in the plastic pudding mold. Some of them can be found in the form of turtle, butterfly, crap, and apple. A miner puts the melting sulfur into a mold Mr. Budi prepares for sulfur trophy stand
Nights at the Base Camp
The Ijen sulfur miners are usually staying in the camp for several days. They work on the mountain for 15 days on average in a month and stay at home for the other 15 days. Among of them have to work longer. They have to stay for 1-2 months in all-limited conditions. They eat and sleep in the huts that are far from worthy of being called as a camp. The room mingled with ticked smell of sulfur which is closely coupled a fireplace for cooking. The distance from the mine site makes them have to bring food supply and cook it in the workers’ camp .. Sleep sharing, bare ragged cardboard and dingy blankets inside a dark booth space, complete their togetherness that emanated meeting in that room cabin. As evening approached, it’s very valuable time to spend outside the hut just because chunks of ‘golden yellow’ has been…
Landscape of Ijen
Ijen Crater is not only a popular natural tourist destination, but also home to around 400 sulfur miners. This active volcano contains a massive sulfur deposit and offers a magnificent view of a turquoise-colored crater lake. Visitors can often meet the miners who carry heavy loads of sulfur on their shoulders. On average, they walk up and down the mountain twice a day, carrying between 50 to 100 kilograms per trip. Most of them come from villages located at the foot of Mount Ijen and make a living by carrying sulfur every day. I am one of them — I have been doing this work since 1990. When I first started as a miner, I had to walk about 18 kilometers a day. Back then, in the early 1990s, I carried sulfur from the crater all the way down to Tamansari Village. Between 1990 and 1994, there was no road…