Halmahera: A Hymn to Fire and Faith
The Shape of Fire
Halmahera, the largest of the Maluku Islands, is a landscape of poetry and power, of spice and smoke, where the breath of the earth rises eternally through green jungles that have witnessed empires rise and fall. From the window of an aircraft descending through equatorial clouds, it appears as an emerald creature adrift in a turquoise sea – its vast wings formed by deep bays and rugged peninsulas that reach into the Molucca Sea like the grasping fingers of some ancient, submerged giant. The island’s distinctive K-shape, forged by the violent collision of the Pacific and Australian tectonic plates, creates four major peninsulas that radiate from a mountainous heart. Beneath the clouds, the island exudes a quiet grandeur that speaks of geological violence and botanical abundance in equal measure.
Every leaf glistens with humidity that never quite dissipates, even in the brief hours before dawn. Every gust of wind carries the scent of clove, nutmeg, and the salt of distant waves mixed with sulphur’s acrid kiss. It is a place alive with spirit – ancient, magnetic, and profoundly human. The very ground trembles with possibility, for Halmahera sits astride the volatile Ring of Fire, that great necklace of volcanic fury that encircles the Pacific. Here, three tectonic plates meet in slow, grinding embrace: the Philippine Sea Plate diving beneath the Eurasian Plate, whilst the Pacific Plate pushes from the east. This geological tension has gifted the island with extraordinary fertility and perpetual danger, a paradox the islanders have learned to inhabit with remarkable grace.
The Spice Islands: A History Written in Blood and Profit
Before the age of maps, before Europeans conceived of the world as a sphere to be conquered and divided, Halmahera was already known to those who sought the world’s most precious spices. The very word “Maluku” derives from the Arab traders’ term for “land of kings,” and these islands were indeed kingdoms unto themselves, their wealth measured not in gold but in the dried flower buds of clove trees and the delicate lace of nutmeg mace. Arab merchants and Javanese sailors once braved the treacherous Banda Sea to reach its fragrant shores, navigating by star and current through waters that could shift from mirror-calm to murderous in the space of an afternoon.
The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries saw Halmahera emerge as a crucial node in the vast maritime network that connected China to the Middle East. Chinese junks arrived laden with porcelain and silk; Malay perahu brought rice and textiles; Arab dhows carried frankincense and myrrh. In return, they departed with holds fragrant with spices that would be worth their weight in silver in the souks of Cairo or the markets of Canton. The sultanates of Ternate and Tidore, tiny volcanic islands visible from Halmahera’s western shore, grew wealthy and powerful on this trade. Their influence extended across the northern Moluccas, and their sultans corresponded as equals with the Majapahit Empire and the Ming Dynasty.
Then came the Portuguese in 1512, driven by faith and greed in equal measure, their caravels heavy with cannon and crosses. António de Abreu and Francisco Serrão were the first Europeans to reach these legendary islands, and their arrival marked the beginning of a new and bloodier chapter. The Portuguese sought not merely to trade but to control – to monopolise the spice routes and to plant the standard of Christ in heathen soil. Their missionaries planted crosses upon the sand and taught hymns beneath the palms, whilst their soldiers built fortresses and brokered alliances with local sultans, playing Ternate against Tidore in the timeless game of empire.
The conversion efforts met with mixed success. Some coastal communities embraced Catholicism, drawn by the promise of Portuguese protection and trade advantages. Others resisted fiercely, seeing clearly that the cross and the sword arrived together. The Portuguese missionary Francis Xavier spent time in these islands in the 1540s, baptising thousands, though how deeply the new faith penetrated the older animist and Islamic traditions remains a matter of historical debate.
The Dutch arrived in 1599, carrying their austere Protestantism and an even more ruthless ambition to command the world’s spice trade. The Dutch East India Company – the VOC – was not content with mere influence. They sought absolute monopoly, and they pursued it with methodical violence. They uprooted spice trees on islands they could not control, imposed draconian contracts on local rulers, and crushed resistance with a brutality that shocked even their European contemporaries. The massacre at the Banda Islands in 1621, where nearly the entire population was killed or enslaved, sent a clear message to Halmahera’s people: cooperate or perish.
In the crucible of these encounters, Christianity took root alongside Islam, which had arrived earlier through peaceful trade and missionary activity. Churches arose beside mosques, and for centuries, the island’s people have prayed both to the steady cross and to the distant thunder of the volcano, finding in their dual faith a resilience that would sustain them through centuries of colonial exploitation.
The Living Mountains
Even now, the rhythm of life is guided by devotion. One hears church bells mingling with the rumble of the sea, and sees women in bright dresses walking to Sunday service with woven baskets of fruit and spice balanced upon their heads with the unconscious grace of those who have carried burdens since childhood. Yet this gentle faith exists in a land that is never truly still. The island rests upon fire.
Halmahera hosts at least seven active volcanoes, part of the Halmahera Volcanic Arc that traces the subduction zone where the Philippine Sea Plate plunges beneath Halmahera. From the misty heights of Ibu (1,325 metres) to the ceaseless breath of Dukono (1,335 metres), these mountains shape the island’s character and test its spirit with unwavering constancy. Ibu, whose name means “mother” in Indonesian, has been in a state of near-constant eruption since 1998, her crater producing strombolian explosions that illuminate the night sky with fountains of incandescent rock. Dukono, even more restless, has maintained continuous eruptive activity since 1933 – one of the longest-documented eruptions on Earth.
The geological forces at work here are almost incomprehensibly vast. Magma rises from depths of 100 kilometres or more, heated by the friction of the descending plate and the release of water from minerals being crushed at unimaginable pressures. This molten rock, lighter than the surrounding mantle, ascends through fractures in the crust, pooling in vast chambers before finding release through volcanic vents. The magma beneath Halmahera is typically andesitic – richer in silica than basalt, more viscous, more prone to explosive eruptions. When it reaches the surface, it can emerge as glowing lava flows or, more dangerously, as pyroclastic surges that race down mountainsides at hundreds of kilometres per hour, incinerating everything in their path.
Yet here, destruction and renewal are part of the same divine pattern – one cannot exist without the other. The volcanic ash that buries fields one year enriches them the next, breaking down into minerals that feed the island’s legendary fertility. Farmers plant cassava and sweet potato in soil that is still warm from recent eruptions, trusting in the earth’s capacity for regeneration even as they acknowledge its capacity for annihilation.
Meeting Alexey
It was through Facebook that I first met Alexey, a guide from Tobelo whose heart beats with the pulse of the island itself, whose knowledge of these mountains extends beyond maps and guidebooks into something approaching kinship. His photographs of Halmahera’s volcanoes – Ibu and Dukono – captured my imagination instantly: great fountains of ash framed by forests, rivers of black sand winding toward the sea, the primal violence of creation made visible. His words carried humility and deep respect for the land. He knew the volcanoes as one knows family – their moods, their silences, their hidden dangers, when to approach and when to retreat.
We planned to meet in October, soon after my return from Nepal, where I had completed my trek to Everest Base Camp. The contrast could not have been greater: from the icy heights of the Himalayas, where the air itself seemed to thin into nothingness, to the steaming jungles of Indonesia, where the atmosphere weighs heavy with moisture and life. When my plane descended towards Ternate, the old capital of the spice sultans, I pressed my face to the window and watched the volcanic cone of Gamalama rise from the sea, its perfect symmetry marred only by the thin plume of smoke trailing from its summit. The island of Ternate is itself a volcano, and from its slopes, the sultans once commanded an empire built on fragrant commerce.
I saw Alex waiting at the terminal, smiling with calm familiarity, a man utterly at ease in his own landscape. That evening I stayed in a small hotel overlooking the sea and wandered through Ternate’s market – a labyrinth of smells and colours that assaulted the senses with wonderful intensity. Pyramids of nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon rose beside mounds of chillies that ranged from deep burgundy to brilliant scarlet. The cloves were particularly striking – tiny dried flower buds, dark brown and aromatic, each one worth a fortune in medieval Europe, each one still picked by hand from trees that can live for a century or more. Traders shouted in good humour, their voices mixing Ternate Malay with Indonesian and fragments of Portuguese that have survived five centuries of linguistic evolution.
From the jetty, I watched Halmahera glimmer across the water, green and immense, veiled in volcanic smoke that caught the evening light and turned it amber. The channel between Ternate and Halmahera is relatively narrow – no more than ten kilometres at its closest point – yet it has served throughout history as a boundary between kingdoms, a moat that both connected and separated these islands of spice.
The Crossing
Alex met me early the next morning, as the sky was transitioning from the deep blue of tropical night to the softer tones of dawn. We boarded the fast ferry that glided over calm waters, leaving behind a trail of silver foam that caught the strengthening light. The sea shimmered beneath a clear sky, its surface broken only by the occasional flash of flying fish – remarkable creatures that burst from the water and glide on extended pectoral fins for distances of up to 200 metres, fleeing the tuna and dolphinfish that hunt these waters. Schools of them flashed like streaks of chrome, their bodies catching the sun before they plunged back into the sea’s embrace.
As Halmahera approached, its silhouette grew sharper against the morning sky – a wilderness of forested peaks and cloud-draped volcanoes that seemed to rise directly from the sea without the courtesy of coastal plains. The island’s beauty struck me with a quiet force that required no embellishment. It seemed primeval, untouched by the haste of the modern world, though I knew this impression to be partially illusory. Halmahera has been inhabited for thousands of years, its forests shaped by human hands, its villages ancient beyond record.
After landing at the port, we took a taxi heading inland towards Ibu village. The road wound through jungles and hamlets, each one marked by a small church with a tin roof gleaming in the sun like a signal flag. The architecture spoke of practical faith – simple wooden structures raised on stilts against flooding, their walls open to catch every breeze, their interiors cool and dark. Women in bright floral dresses reminded me unexpectedly of Goa, walking gracefully with baskets upon their heads, moving with the unhurried confidence of those whose days are measured by tasks rather than clocks.
Even the air was different here – heavier, more substantial, fragrant with spice and the faint hint of sulphur that announced the proximity of active vents. Alex spoke to me about Halmahera’s history as we drove, how the island’s people had survived centuries of colonial conquest and religious strife, yet had kept their kindness and faith intact, had somehow preserved their humanity in the face of depredations that would have broken lesser communities. “We live close to fire,” he said softly, gesturing towards the smoking mountain ahead. “That is why we pray. The earth teaches us humility.”
The Ibu Caldera
We arrived in Ibu village late in the day, as the sun hung low and painted everything in shades of amber and rust. The volcano towered over the landscape, breathing thin streams of smoke that rose vertically in the still air before dispersing at altitude. We stopped at a small roadside market to buy vegetables – the prices absurdly low by Western standards, the produce fresh and vibrant – and then continued to Alex’s sister’s home, a modest wooden house perched at the edge of a field where chickens scratched and pecked with single-minded dedication.
From her yard, the view was astonishing. Ibu’s caldera stretched like a colossal bowl, rimmed by ancient ridges and veiled by steam rising from fissures in the earth. Long ago – perhaps 10,000 years in the past – the mountain had collapsed into its own molten core during a catastrophic eruption, creating a vast cavity where new life now clings to the slopes with remarkable tenacity. The caldera measures roughly four kilometres across, its walls steep and unstable, subject to frequent landslides that send debris cascading into the crater floor.
Within this enormous depression, a new cone has grown – the active vent that now dominates the landscape. This is the pattern of stratovolcanoes: eruption, collapse, regeneration, a cycle that can repeat over hundreds of thousands of years. The rocks exposed in the caldera walls tell a story written in layers of ash and lava, each stratum recording an ancient eruption, a moment of violence now fossilised and stable.
Children played near the edge of blackened lava flows that had cooled only months earlier, their texture still sharp and glassy where it had not yet weathered. Farmers worked the land as if unaware of the risk that loomed above them, though I knew they were anything but unaware. They had simply made their accommodation with danger, had learned to read the mountain’s signs – the colour of its smoke, the frequency of its tremors, the behaviour of birds and insects that sense changes before human instruments can detect them.
The soil, enriched by ash, was fertile beyond measure. Cassava, coconut, and nutmeg thrived here, nourished by the very fire that threatened their roots. Volcanic soil is prized throughout Indonesia for its richness in minerals – potassium, phosphorus, calcium, and trace elements that support vigorous plant growth. A single heavy ashfall can bury crops and destroy a season’s work, yet within two years, that same ash will have weathered into the most productive soil on the island. This is why humanity has always settled near volcanoes despite the obvious danger: the land’s fertility outweighs the risk in the calculus of survival.
Yet beneath that fertility, danger slept lightly. As evening settled and the light failed, I felt the faint tremor of the ground – a slow, rhythmic pulse that seemed almost like the heartbeat of a living creature. These were volcanic tremors, caused by magma moving through chambers and conduits deep beneath our feet, pushing upward, seeking release. Modern seismographs would record these as continuous harmonic tremors, the signature of fluid movement underground. To stand there, feeling the earth breathe, was to understand viscerally that we inhabit a dynamic planet, that the solid ground beneath our feet is solid only by courtesy of temperature and pressure.
The mountain’s presence was both protective and menacing. The villagers spoke of her as “mother,” a being capable of both nurture and wrath, who feeds her children and occasionally devours them. This anthropomorphising of the volcano is common in cultures that live with geological hazard – it provides a framework for understanding the unpredictable, a way to negotiate with forces that lie beyond human control.
The Spice-Scented Climb
That afternoon, as shadows lengthened and the air began its slight cooling, Alex led me through his family’s spice groves. The path climbed through trees heavy with nutmeg and clove, their fragrance saturating. The clove trees towered overhead, their leaves glossy and aromatic even when crushed underfoot. These are Syzygium aromaticum, native to these islands and nowhere else on Earth before human hands carried them to Zanzibar and Madagascar, to Sri Lanka and Brazil. The unopened flower buds are picked by hand, then dried until they turn the characteristic dark brown that Europeans once coveted more than gold.
The nutmeg trees were equally impressive – Myristica fragrans, another endemic species that transformed world history. The fruit, when ripe, splits open to reveal a bright red aril (the mace) surrounding a dark seed (the nutmeg). Both are valuable; both were once literally worth killing for. The Dutch monopoly on nutmeg was so absolute, so ruthlessly enforced, that they nearly drove the spice to extinction in the wild, uprooting trees on any island they could not control.
The trunks were slick with rain that had fallen earlier, the ground alive with insects – stick insects as long as my hand, beetles with iridescent carapaces, ants marching in columns to unseen destinations. Halmahera’s old name the Spice Island, Jailolo in ancient texts revealed its meaning here.
As dusk descended, fireflies began to appear, flickering like sparks of gold amid the foliage. These were not the synchronous fireflies of Southeast Asian mangroves, but solitary hunters, each beetle flashing its own rhythm, its own chemical light produced by the oxidation of luciferin in specialised organs. We reached a small clearing beside the volcano and made camp, pitching tents on ground that was still faintly warm from the day’s sun and the earth’s deep heat.
Throughout the night, Ibu whispered. The mountain spoke in sighs and growls, sending ash into the clouded sky at irregular intervals. The stars were faint, veiled by vapour and smoke. I lay outside my tent, unwilling to enclose myself entirely, listening to the tremor beneath me, aware that I was resting upon breathing earth. Anopheles and Aedes mosquitoes hummed endlessly, species that carry malaria and dengue, though I had taken precautions, yet I found no great annoyance in them. There was something humbling in the rawness of it all, in the reminder that comfort is a recent human invention and not our natural state.
Alex and his family were attentive and kind, ensuring I was comfortable despite the conditions, bringing water, adjusting the tent ropes, offering an extra blanket when the temperature dropped in the small hours before dawn. Indonesian hospitality is legendary, and here in this remote place it felt especially genuine, unburdened by the transactional nature of tourism that can hollow out kindness.
At dawn, the volcano exhaled a plume of pale smoke as the first light painted the hills in shades of rose and gold. We descended to Alex’s sister’s house for breakfast of rice, grilled fish and strong black coffee sweetened with palm sugar.
Through the Heart of the Island
After breakfast, Alex arranged for his friend to drive us north to Tobelo, a journey of roughly 50 kilometres that would take most of the day. The road alternated between smooth tarmac laid down in brief periods of government investment and rough, broken earth where the monsoon rains had devoured long sections, forcing us to cross rivers without bridges. Indonesia’s infrastructure is perpetually at war with its climate and geology, and the climate generally wins.
At one point, water surged against the wheels, muddy and fast-flowing, carrying branches and debris from upstream. The driver was a virtuoso, he was calm, patient, guiding the vehicle as though it were a small boat on a wild current, throttle balanced perfectly to maintain momentum without hydroplaning.
The landscape unfolded like a dream. Towering palms framed glimpses of the ocean, their fronds rattling in the wind like dry paper. The air was filled with the cries of unseen birds, hornbills with their absurd casque-topped beaks, cockatoos whose screeching calls announced our presence long before we arrived, sunbirds that flashed iridescent in the canopy. Waterfalls tumbled through curtains of mist, their water-stained brown with tannins from the forest, crashing into pools that looked inviting but were likely home to crocodiles, the estuarine species that inhabits both fresh and saltwater throughout this archipelago.
The scent of spice followed us even here, mixing with the smell of wet earth and rotting vegetation, the perpetual odour of tropical forest where death and life occur in such close proximity that they become indistinguishable. Every turn revealed something new – children waving from verandas, their faces bright with curiosity, elders sitting in silence under trees that had witnessed their grandparents’ childhoods, dogs chasing our car through the rain with the doomed enthusiasm of their kind.
When the road finally opened to the sea, Tobelo lay ahead peaceful, luminous, and alive with the unhurried industry of a fishing town. The settlement sits on a curve of soft sand at the head of a bay sheltered by coral reefs that break the ocean’s force. Fishing boats painted in bright blues and greens rocked gently on the tide, their hulls worn smooth by years of service, their names invoking Allah’s protection or expressing optimism – Cahaya Harapan (Light of Hope), Berkah Laut (Blessing of the Sea).
The people moved at a pace that seemed measured by the rhythm of the waves rather than the ticking of clocks. Alex had booked me a room at the Hotel Astonia Tobelo, a modest establishment owned by the region’s former governor, a place of quiet charm and polished wood that spoke of civic pride and local investment. My room was simple but immaculate, with a window that overlooked the the garden and carried in the distant growls of Dukono.
That evening, I walked through the marketplace where the day’s catch was laid out in silver rows on crushed ice. Fish such as tuna and mackerel, red snappers and groupers, squid and octopus, prawns the size of small lobsters. The air smelled of sea salt and clove oil, which was used as a preservative. Women laughed as they sold fruit, their voices carrying across the market in a melodic patter that was half sales pitch, half social commentary. The scent of grilled fish mingled with the sweetness of bananas and the sharp tang of green mangoes.
I was captivated by the warmth of the people, their curiosity, their easy smiles, the way they made space for a stranger without suspicion or servility. I ate pizza that night by the water’s edge, an absurd but somehow appropriate meal, comforted by the mixture of the familiar and the foreign. The sea was calm, reflecting the faint red glow of distant Dukono, which continued its eternal eruption invisible beyond the darkening hills.
The March to Dukono
Alex arrived at my hotel before dawn, when the streets were still asleep and the only sounds were the calls of roosters and the distant puttering of fishing boats heading out for the morning catch. We set out for Dukono, the island’s most volatile volcano, whose summit rises just east of Tobelo. Just days earlier, local tourists had captured an eruption on video, the fiery plume spreading rapidly across social media, shared thousands of times with a mixture of pride and trepidation. The authorities had closed the main trail for safety, concerned that the increased activity presaged something more dangerous.
But Alex had another way, a path known only to guides and locals who had been walking these jungles and mountains since childhood. It would take longer, he said, perhaps five or six hours instead of three, but it would bring us closer to the heart of the mountain, approaching from the northwest rather than the more exposed southern route.
The path led us beneath a thick canopy where daylight struggled to enter, filtering through in dusty shafts that illuminated floating spores and pollen. The jungle was damp and alive with the chatter of birds and the rustle of unseen creatures such as wild pigs, perhaps, or the monitors that grow to two metres in length and fear nothing. The ground was slippery with ash. Every leaf, every branch bore a thin layer of grey, evidence of Dukono’s relentless productivity. This ash, composed of pulverised rock and volcanic glass, is surprisingly abrasive, capable of damaging lungs if inhaled in sufficient quantity.
Occasionally, we heard the low growl of the volcano, a sound so deep it seemed to emanate from within our own chests, felt as much as heard. Infrasonic waves, sound waves below the threshold of human hearing, sounds that propagate from volcanic vents during eruptions, and they affect the body in subtle ways: unease, nausea, a sense of presence. As we climbed higher, the air filled with sulphur and the occasional fall of fine ash that drifted like ghostly snow, settling on our clothes and in our hair.
After nearly five hours of steady trekking, we reached a safety hut, a small wooden structure half-buried in ash, maintained by the park service but dishevelled. The state of it would not protect anyone during a powerful eruption. We rested there. Alex, ever calm, cooked noodles and coffee over a small camping stove, the blue flame incongruous in this landscape of grey. I ventured closer to the crater, where the air shimmered with heat rising from vents in the ground. The terrain was surreal with trees scorched and frozen mid-motion by pyroclastic flows, their carbonised trunks still standing like monuments to their own destruction. Stones warm underfoot, and streams of vapour escaping from cracks in the earth with a hissing that sounded almost like speech.
I filmed the landscape, the sky above tinted by a haze of smoke, the light diffuse and strange. When I returned, Alex had prepared lunch wrapped in rice, vegetables, and salted fish, simple food that tasted extraordinary in this setting. We ate in silence, the only sound the low rumble of the volcano, which continued its conversation with the sky.
Later, we ascended again through fields of ash and twisted rock, passing the remnants of ancient craters carved by centuries of eruptions. Dukono is not a simple cone but a labyrinth, a volcanic complex with multiple vents and craters that have formed, filled, and collapsed over millennia. The main vent, Malupang-Warirang, breathes without pause, exhaling growling ash filled smoke that curls into the sky like the spirit of the island itself, visible from ships far out at sea.
When we reached the upper ridge, the wind changed abruptly, a common and deadly hazard on active volcanoes. What had been blowing the toxic gases away from us now drove them directly towards our position. The air became thick, unbreathable, heavy with sulphur dioxide and hydrogen sulphide. My eyes watered; my throat burned. We could go no further without risking serious harm.
I launched my drone instead, watching it soar above the crater, its camera revealing what we could not approach on foot. The footage revealed the incandescent heart of the earth exposed to the sky. The crater itself was a chaotic landscape of collapsed walls and steaming vents, nothing like the neat symmetrical cones of textbook volcanoes.
The Return
Though I captured the spectacle on film, a quiet disappointment settled within me. I had dreamed of standing at the crater’s edge, to stare into the living heart of the earth, to feel the heat on my face and watch the molten rock flow. Yet there is wisdom in retreat, in acknowledging the limits that nature imposes. We began our descent through gathering darkness, the sun setting rapidly as it does near the equator, plunging the forest into twilight within minutes.
Only our headlamps illuminated the ash-covered trail, their beams catching floating particles and turning the air luminous. I watched in awe as Alex moved effortlessly. During our ascent he had been cutting small marks into trees with his machete like subtle blazes that would guide us back or help others who might become lost. He read leaves and soil as though the forest spoke a secret language only he understood, noting the direction of moss growth, the flow of water, the patterns of wildlife tracks. He navigated bends and gullies by instinct, sensing direction in the flow of air and the chorus of insects, which changes with elevation and proximity to water.
It was a masterclass in survival, in the kind of knowledge that cannot be learned from books but only from years of patient observation. I followed silently, humbled by my own ignorance, grateful for his expertise. After three exhausting hours, we reached our motorbikes, which we had left at the trail head. My body was aching, my skin grey with dust, my clothes soaked with sweat despite the relative coolness of the evening. Yet I felt alive in a way that transcended mere physical sensation.
Back at the hotel, I scrubbed away layers of ash in a shower that ran brown for minutes, watching the detritus of the volcano swirl down the drain. I fell into the deepest sleep I can remember, the mountain’s distant thunder echoing in my dreams, my muscles twitching with remembered effort.
Duma and Farewell
In the days that followed, Alex took me through the northern villages, to Galela, where the lake shimmered like a mirror beneath the sun, its waters volcanic in origin, filling a caldera from some ancient eruption. We visited traditional markets where women sold woven goods and baskets shaped from palm fronds, and to Duma, a place marked by history’s sorrow in ways that have not yet fully healed.
He spoke softly of the year 2000, when violence had swept through Halmahera in the aftermath of Indonesia’s broader religious conflicts. The transition following Suharto’s fall had unleashed ethnic and religious tensions throughout the archipelago. In Halmahera, the violence pitted Christian against Muslim communities, dividing neighbours and families who had lived peacefully together for generations. The island’s history of religious tolerance frayed under the pressure of outside provocateurs and economic stress.
Hundreds had fled Duma aboard the ferry Cahaya Bahari, hoping to escape the chaos, carrying whatever they could salvage of their lives. But the ship, overcrowded and poorly maintained, sank in stormy waters between Halmahera and Ternate, claiming many lives. The exact number remains uncertain with some reports suggest 300 dead, others claim fewer, but the impact on these small communities was devastating.
Even now, the people of Duma speak of that night in hushed tones, their grief mingled with faith, their remembrance complicated by the knowledge that the violence was as much political as religious, manipulated by distant powers for purposes the villagers barely understood. A small monument near the shore bears the names of the lost, its paint faded by sea wind and sun, offerings of flowers perpetually fresh. The monument is simple, a plinth with names carved in Indonesian and local dialects but it carries the weight of collective memory.
On the eve of my departure, Alex invited me to his home for a farewell dinner. His house was modest but comfortable, decorated with photographs of family. His family welcomed me warmly, serving rice, fish, and fragrant vegetables perhaps cooked over firewood that imparted a subtle smokiness to everything. His children were shy but curious, asking about my country, my journey, why I had come so far to see their volcanoes.
The conversation drifted from laughter to silence, from memory to hope. Alex spoke of his dreams for Tobelo, for sustainable tourism that would bring income without destroying the island’s character. He spoke of education for his children, of the possibility that they might leave Halmahera for university but would, he hoped, return to contribute to their community. Outside, the night was clear. In the distance, Dukono rumbled endlessly, its breath rising in the dark, a reminder of presence and power.
The Return
When I finally left Halmahera, boarding the boat that would carry me back to Ternate and then onwards to other destinations, it felt as though I were leaving a part of myself behind. This island of faith and fire, of resilience and simplicity, had claimed me in ways I could not articulate even to myself. The experience had been more than tourism, more than adventure it had been an encounter with the fundamental forces that shape our world, mediated through the kindness of people who have learned to live with those forces with remarkable grace.
I knew that I would return. For Halmahera is not a place one merely visits, it is a living presence, a symphony of earth and spirit, that lingers long after one has gone. The smell of clove and nutmeg, the sound of church bells mixing with volcanic rumbles, the sight of children playing beside lava flows, the taste of grilled fish eaten by the sea all of these remain vivid, immediate, refusing to fade into the soft-focus nostalgia that usually overtakes travel memories.
The island taught me humility, reminded me that we are temporary guests on a planet whose power vastly exceeds our own. Yet it also demonstrated humanity’s remarkable capacity for adaptation, for finding beauty and meaning in the most challenging circumstances. The people of Halmahera live with daily risks that would drive most of us to seek safer ground, yet they do so with joy and faith, with hospitality and humour.
As my plane climbed above Ternate, I looked back at Halmahera one final time, that emerald creature adrift in a turquoise sea, breathing smoke into the endless sky. The volcanoes were partially obscured by cloud, but I could see thin plumes rising, the eternal conversation between earth and atmosphere continuing as it has for millennia and will continue for millennia hence.
I carry the island with me still, in the fine volcanic ash that I discover occasionally in the seams of my backpack, in the photographs that seem inadequate to capture what I witnessed, in the memories of kindness and landscape that have become inseparable. Halmahera abides, remote and essential, a place where the planet’s deep processes become visible, where faith and fire have learned to coexist, where the human and the geological achieve a precarious but beautiful balance.
Some journeys end when you board the plane home. Others persist, reshaping how you see the world, how you understand your place within it. Halmahera was the latter. It reminded me that wonder is not a childish indulgence but a necessary response to a world far stranger and more magnificent than our daily routines allow us to remember. It showed me that courage is not the absence of fear but the decision to live fully in fear’s presence.
As I write this 11 months later, far from Halmahera’s humid embrace, I check occasionally on the island through satellite imagery and news reports. Ibu continues her restless activity, occasionally intensifying enough to prompt raised alert levels. Dukono maintains its endless eruption, and Alex guiding his other guests. The people go about their lives fishing, farming, praying, raising their children, laughing in markets, mourning their dead.
Alex sends messages occasionally, photographs of new eruptions, updates on his family and invitations to return.
And it is beautiful, in the way that all powerful things are beautiful not despite their danger but because of it, because they remind us that beauty and terror are often inseparable, that the sublime emerges precisely at the boundary between wonder and fear. The volcanoes of Halmahera are beautiful because they are real, because they operate according to laws far older than human civilisation, because they care nothing for our presence or absence yet sustain us nonetheless.
I will return to Halmahera inevitably. The island has claimed something from me, some complacency, some false sense of human centrality, and offered something in exchange: a deeper understanding of what it means to inhabit a living planet, to be part of rather than apart from the natural world. This seems a fair trade.
Until then, the island persists in memory with unusual clarity, refusing to fade or simplify. I remember the weight of humidity, the smell of spice and sulphur, the trembling ground beneath my sleeping bag, Alex’s quiet competence, the children playing beside lava flows, the church bells ringing across volcanic landscapes, the impossible green of forests that thrive on destruction.
The volcanoes will outlast us all, continuing their slow conversation with the sky long after the last human voice has fallen silent. This is not a sad thought but a liberating one. It frees us from the burden of permanence, from the exhausting illusion of control. We can plant our cassava, raise our children, practice our faith, tell our stories, and trust that our brief presence has meaning even if it is not eternal.
This, perhaps, is what Halmahera ultimately offers: permission to be small, to be temporary, to be human in the fullest sense, neither master nor victim of nature but participant in a drama far larger than ourselves. The island asks nothing and offers everything to those willing to receive it. It demands only respect and returns wonder in abundance.
And so the story does not end. It pauses, waiting for the next chapter, for the return that feels less like choice than inevitability. The mountains are indeed calling. They call across thousands of kilometres and months of time, their voices carrying on winds that circle the planet, mixing with sea spray and the scent of cloves, with church bells and the rumble of the earth’s deep heart.
Halmahera endures, emerald and eternal, wreathed in smoke, alive with the pulse of creation. And I, like all who have truly encountered it, am changed by its presence, marked by volcanic ash and human kindness, by faith and fire, by the recognition that some places are not merely visited but inhabited, not merely seen but experienced with the whole of one’s being.
The island waits, patient and powerful, breathing its ancient breath into modern skies, teaching its timeless lessons to all who approach with open hearts. And one day, when the time is right, I will return to its shores, to its mountains, to its people, and continue a conversation that has no conclusion, only pauses between eruptions, only the steady rhythm of waves and volcanoes, of prayer and fire, of human presence on an impossibly beautiful planet that tolerates us with magnificent indifference and occasional grace.
For Alex and the people of Halmahera, who live with courage and humility in the shadow of fire, who practice hospitality in the face of hardship, who remind us all what it means to be fully, authentically human.
Copyright © Tales from the Horizon, 2025
