The Bromo bunch

In the middle of a vast, dry plain dubbed the Sea of Sand, a whole family of volcanoes rises near the eastern end of Earth's most populous island. Mount Bromo sits low and flat as it billows smoke in our photo's center-left, while lofty Mount Semeru (the highest point here on Java) rises in the distance. Rounding out the bunch are the cinder cone Mount Batok, standing just above Bromo in the foreground, and the ridges of Jambangan and Widodaren just behind. Still mostly active, the massif is an important pilgrimage site for Javanese Hindu people, and the area has been a protected wilderness for more than a century.