Bali Hai and the 'Adventure' of getting to Mount Bromo

Post guesthouse-kicking-out-of we booked a trip, $35 each, that would take us to Mount Bromo, an active Volcano, stay the night, get free breakfast, take the bus to the ferry, catch the ferry, and minibus-it to Lovina, north Bali. In theory, this seemed freaking fantastic. 7am Corey wakes up on departure day with what he describes as a knife jabbing into his gut. This gets worse as we get into the 1949 Mitsubishi van that is to take us to the volcano. As Corey rolls around in the back of the van in extreme pain, I'm blowing my nose and trying to release the pressure in my ears due to a nasty headcold. This trip, in the back of an unconditioned falling apart van, takes us...get this...13 ^&%**&% hours and I had to finally yell at the driver to stop so I could pee.
We FINALLY get to a shack in the town of Probolingo at the base of the mountain where the tell us we'll be staying in adifferent guesthouse than the one we booked. Awsome. We get to our very uncool guesthouse, sleep, only to be woken up to knocking at 2:57am. The knocking lasted an hour until we got up and were told we would be dropped off and left on our own as we chose not to book the additional tour to the viewpoint (if I'm going to a volcano, I'd rather stand beside the damn thing than at a viewpoint far away, thank you). So there Corey and I were...in the dark as it's 4am, hiking on an unmarked path, possibly towards a volcano, alone.
We made it to where people were (only locals as EVERY other white person went to the viewpoint, suckers). We watched the sun come up and hiked back.
Our bus to Bali was fine, we had our German friends back with us, and the ferry to Bali was pleasant. Then another minibus...
We were thrown out of the big coach bus that brought us to Bali as we, again, were the ONLY ones going to Lovina. We were ushered into another falling apart van, jumped in the front seats, and in steps the driver. I look over and there, staring me in the face, only 2 feet away, a goiter on his neck the size of a papaya. I look over at Corey with terror and ask "What am I going to do? WHAT AM I GOING TO DO!", of course all he does is laugh for about 5 minutes.
Anyways, we head across Bali at 8pm with goiter-driver and 20 other locals and make it to our slice of heaven where we are now. The end.