“Our” planet’s largest highly acidic lake is the one in Kawah Ijen – the Ijen Crater.
I took this post’s photo from the rim of Kawah Ijen, in almost-easternmost Java, at 5.51 am on 24 October 2024.
My beloved and I were at circa 2400 metres above sea level, with the lake’s surface some 200 vertical metres lower than our feet.
The red fabric in the foreground is trying to tell tourists “do not venture any closer to the crater’s edge”; it was placed there not many moons ago, soon after a Chinese tourist’s fatal fall.
For hundreds of years before tourists turned up, Kawah Ijen was already killing people, injuring them, or substantially shortening their lives..and not just via major eruptions
Some of the victims – mostly “locals” – were (and still are) earning their livelihood by “harvesting” sulfur.
The hellish “mine site” is visible in my photo: simply look for the plumes/fumes and the adjacent yellow stain, near the lake’s edge.
Eventually, multi-image posts will show much more of Ijen’s starkly dramatic natural terrain.
They will also show you its signature, famous/infamous, arduous and highly dangerous form of work…and the men who do it. (all – or very nearly all – are male)
Footnote
The Ijen complex – aka the “Ijen Plateau” – has at least ten volcanoes; Ijen itself is the most spectacular, but not the tallest one.
The Ijen Plateau’s highest volcano – Gunung Merapi – reaches 2,769 metres, more than 9,000 feet.
A number of other Indonesian volcanoes bear the same name; it translates as “Fire Mountain”.
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