Day 182_to_189

We arrive to Denpasar quite late at night and we still have to cross the passport control (luckily we don’t need visa) and customs. What usually it’s a quick process it becomes an endless wait. We arrived at the same time than some Chinese airplanes and everything get’s crazy. After more than 2 hours waiting we are free to go with our luggage.

Then, the wild harrasment starts… we really never missed that. The taxi drivers start following us trying to get us into their cars. The thing is that we are sleeping in a hotel just 10 minutes walking away, so we don’t need a drive. We start walking through the streets of Kuta, not the best place to stay in Bali. We had been warned not to go there because it’s not a good neighbourhood (lots of alcohol, drugs, silly tourists and people who wants to take advantage of it).

In the morning we decide to give it a chance and we go to visit the beach and surroundings.

During the day it’s not that bad, but the harrassment continues… one guy even tries to sell me a crossbow!?

After getting an Indonesian sim card and tickets to Gili T (an island where we plan to dive while we wait for Maria) we head to our friends Mario’s house. We met him the first time having breakfast in a hotel in front of the Passu cones in Pakistan. After that day we kept in touch and we even met in Georgetown (Malaysia) some time ago. He is living in Indonesia for around 30 years and he kindly invited us to stay with him.

Guess what, I fall instantly in love with Bulo, his dog.

We have a lovely and delicious dinner with Mario (as a good Italian he owns a Pizzeria). We hope to see him again when we come back from Gili T.

Next morning someone will take us to the harbour to take the ship to Gili Trawangan. The minibus shows up surprisingly puntual, but that’s the only good thing of the day… It takes 3 hours to reach to the harbour (double than we have been said) and once there we find out that we are going with another ship, not the one that we paid (of course we get a worse one).

I’m not tall and my legs don’t fit!

The sailing is not pleasant at all. In fact, it is quite scary. There are large waves and we move as a nut shell. I can feel that the people is getting more and more scaried. The thing is that in Indonesia is not uncommon that a vessel sinks, so I think we are all thinking the same until we finally reach the beach in Gili T.

As usual we have neither a plan neither a hotel, so we just follow a nice guy who says that he offers a good price and a clean room. As it is true we take it.

Last August we heard something about an earthquake in the region, and now we are facing the consequences. As we walk through the streets with our new friend he shows us some destroyed buildings. At the same time he says that we shouldn’t worry about that, because everything is fine now.

The building in front of our hotel:

Once installed we head to the diving school to arrange the dives for the next days. Afterwards, we go to the beach to see the sunset. I don’t know what happens in this region of the world but everyday the sunsets are a party of colours!

Our plan to dive is cancelled because I’m having some kind of “reaction” to the dinner from yesterday… that burger was not 100% ok. So we’ll just spend the day resting in the hotel and walking around the village.

The Gili Islands are an archipelago of three small islands (Gili Trawangan, Gili Meno and Gili Air) just off the northwest coast of Lombok. Most local inhabitants live on Trawangan in a township stretching along its east side just inland (which is also where most recent development is taking place and it’s where we are staying). Automobiles and motorized traffic are prohibited on the islands by local ordinance, so the preferred method of transportation is by foot and bicycle or the horse-drawn carriage called a cidomo. That makes the reconstruction of the buildings a hard work for this people.

Again an incredible sunset…

Not long after we fall sleep I feel something extrange is going on… the windows are doing noises as someone is trying to enter. Then, when our neighbours start screaming I know. That was an earthquake!!!!! I have a useful app and I check it there. Affirmative, I felt a subtile tremor!!! I wake up Tià (he hasn’t felt it) to tell him, but he remains impassible sleeping. So I just spend the rest of the night awake just in case another one occurs, to be ready to run.

Finally! Today we’ll dive. One of the dives is a bit dissapointing because the coral is all dead… it seems that the earthquake affected badly this region; It’s something heartbreaking to see. On the other hand I get to see my first shark (a blacktip shark which was resting in a cave), Tià was not lucky enough. But we also have seen some Hawksville turtles, lots of fishes as usual and… a pigmy seahorse! Amazing!!!!

It’s nice to feel how confident we get as more as we dive… we love it!

As I left the phone at the hotel to dive, there aren’t pics of it… but at the afternoon we have a nice walk around the little village.

Next day we’ll come back to Bali! We want to spend some time with Mario while we wait our friend Maria.

We see the daily life at the beach while we wait for our vessel. This time it’s one that feels safer.

During the trip we have a nice surprise, a literally big one! A Whale decides to cross in our path and we get to see it quite good. It seems to be a humpback whale of around 15m (that’s what it seemed to us, but as we aren’t experts we may be wrong). It is an experience to see one of this magnificent animals, we are lucky enough to see it all out to take some air, even the tail! However, we are so fascinated that we don’t have pics from it. We just wanted to see all with our eyes… sorry!

Next days we’ll stay by Mario’s just resting and working on the blog and other projects that we have going on.

One of this days I have an alert in my phone (the one about earthquakes and other natural disasters) and we see that a Tsunami has occured. It has been caused by an undersea landslide that followed an eruption of Anak Krakatau in the Sunda Strait. It strikes several coastal regions of Banten in Java and Lampung in Sumatra leaving at least 426 people killed and 14,059 injured. The fact that the tsunami was triggered by a volcano rather than an earthquake meant no tsunami warning has been triggered. The coastal residents reported not seeing or feeling any warning signs before waves of up to three metres high surged in.

We love Indonesia, the landscapes, the people and the undersea life are AMAZING, but it’s the first time in the whole trip that we don’t feel completelly safe. All this natural disasters are quite frightening.

Next day will be our last lazy day in Denpassar.

Today is the day! Tonight Maria arrives to Denpasar! We are so excited to see her! She arrives on time and we sleep in a hotel in Kuta again because tomorrow we’ll fly to Labuanbajo in Flores!