After the difficulties of the 15th, the 16th was spent lazing around, swimming, eating grapes while lying on a chaise lounge, you know the like. But enough! we decided, and the 17th was going to be a day of action. Today is a good day to ride motorcycles!

But first things first. Lovina is famous for its dolphins, so we booked a dolphin tour. We woke up at 6 am (Dalma’s favourite time, though they organised coffee for us). An outrigger fishing boat came and took us out. Sadly, the dolphins weren’t cooperative that day, but Lovina seen from the sea is lovely.

Early morning at Lovina

On the way back, Dalma did some snorkelling.

Snorkelling at Lovina

We then set off for a waterfall our host had told us about. It was about an hour away on the bikes down some of the smallest roads I’ve seen here. About a car’s width and divided into two motorcycle lanes. Which everyone ignored, of course.

The waterfall was down this narrow road that went down a hill. I went down to the bottom, and Dalma stopped maybe 100m behind me. We went down to see it, but it looked like a long hike to the bottom, so we just stayed at the top and took photos.

We donned our gear and set off again. We’d heard of this amazing Buddhist temple. But coming up, in the Cardo, I heard Dalma swear and ran back to find her off the bike surrounded by locals helping her up.

For the record, I had the GoPro running. I didn’t stop to take a photo before I ran down.

She got up, a little shaken. I rode Lexi the 50 metres to where I’d parked WTF and she followed on foot. The kindly people that ran the little warung made sure we were ok, gave us water, and let us sit for a while. Fortunately it seems that the damage was confined to a bruised elbow. Lexi was fine. I asked her if she wanted to go back to the hotel, but she was courageous, got back on the bike and we rode to the Buddhist temple. (I think she had a little cry in the helmet, but she’s determined.)

The temple was gorgeous as promised. Calm and beautiful. We spent a happy hour wandering around.

By then it was lunchtime so we had lunch at a warung that turned out to be a … Georgian bakery. Not catfish and grits, but a real eastern-Europe Georgian bakery. In Indonesia. We ate a good lunch, considered the implications of Georgian/Indonesian restaurants and set off for home. There was also a hot spring, but we decided we’d had enough and set off home. The ride was uneventful. I turned off one turn too early which ended up with us gamely riding along a pathway in front of the beach. We could see our guesthouse. We just couldn’t get to it. Backtracking past a bird auction (?!) we found our way home and sank gratefully into the welcoming arms of the 1000 Dream Bungalows.

Riding along, I thought we couldn’t really have stumbled across a better place to stay. Thoughtful hosts, not too big, beautiful surrounds. It was heaven. Tomorrow we set off for goodness knows where, but today we’re happy and content to watch the sun disappear and for the night to close in. Watching kids jump into the ocean at sunset. Lovina was one of the most chill times of our time in Bali. Not a bad place to stop and recuperate.

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