Trekking

Up at 6:00, I didn't sleep much last night, because I slept so well the night before. Scott came back at 6:00AM, he slept at the German girls' hotel last night.

Scott and I packed our stuff into the truck, and met the guides outside our hotel at 6:30. We had to wait for about 20 minutes for two others, from Switzerland, to arrive. Once they got there, we hopped into the minivan and started on our way. We found out in the minibus that we are not trekking the volcano, we are doing a trek near Singaraja, in the mountains. On the way there, we got pulled over by the police, and our driver had to get out, and give his drivers license to the police officer. He'll have to pay a bribe later on to get it back. The police are very crooked here, and nobody likes them. When the cop left, they tried to start the van, but it wouldn't start. So we all got out and pushed, so he could try to push start it. It took a few tries, but he finally got it going again. About a minute later, the van died again, and we all got out and pushed, but no go this time. The tour guys ushered us into a bemo (open-air mini-van-turned-public-transport), and the bemo had to take us to the start of the trek. Not a good day for the driver, he has to pay a bribe to get his license back, he has to take his truck in to get fixed, he'll have to pay for the bemo ride to the start of the trek, and he'll have to pay for our transport back after the trek is over! So much for any profit today!

The trek was great, saw waterfalls, got to jump off a 15 foot cliff into a pool, which was fun, stopped at another waterfall pool for swimming and lunch. This was perfection, if you could imagine a pool with waterfalls falling into it from three different sides, absolutely amazing, gorgeous. Lunch was excelleng too.

Super hot today, we're sweating crazy.

Near the end of the trek, we returned to a local village and just as we were arriving, they were starting a cock fight. They were trying to get the two cocks all riled up to fight, but one was afraid of the other, and wouldn't be aggressive, so that fight was cancelled. We had to wait about 15 minutes, and then two other cocks went at it.

Cock fighting is BIG in Bali. They strap a very sharp blade to one foot of each cock, and then they get the cocks all riled up, ready to fight each other, and usually the match goes until one of the cocks is dead. These two cocks started at each other, both were bleeding a fair amount, then both stopped. Neither would finish the other off. Each was injured, one had blood all over his face, the other couldn't walk properly anymore. To try and finish the match, the put both cocks inside a small, confined cage, but neither was interested in fighting anymore. We figured each would become supper for this evening, but were told that each cock would live, and in about three months, they'd be healthy enough to fight again.

It was cruel, but interesting to see.

Scott was absolutely beside himself, that people lived out in the middle of the jungle, all alone, except for some dogs, maybe a cow and a pig, and some chickens, no electricity, no running water, nothing. He just couldn't believe that people lived like that, was quite astounded by it. It was a real eye opener for him.

As we were walking through one village, he heard someone call his name, "Hey, Scott!" He looked, and there sitting down with a bunch of locals was this guy (a local as well) he had met the night before at a bar in Lovina!!! What are the odds, a local he met at the bar in Lovina would be sitting out in the middle of the jungle, and Scott would run into him!

We got back to the hotel about 1:30, Kristin and Louisa were not around. I walked to some of the resorts down the beach to see if they were using the swimming pools at one of them, and found them lounging near the pool of one resort. They had checked out of their hotel by noon, so we had no rooms left in which to shower, so I asked the hotel if I could shower at their poolside (they had showers), they obliged, so it was nice to get all the sweat off.

We walked back to our hotel, had supper at the Rasta Bar (right beside our hotel). Took a long time for the food to come. Millie, the one who took us on the tour yesterday, was cooking. They had a small kitchen there, and were making food for some other tourists first.

We left for Kuta about 4:30, got back to Kuta about 7:30. We checked into a different hotel, Scott and I in one room, Louisa and Kristin in another. Scott crashed at 9:00, he was up most of the night before, I went to bed at 10:00.