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I decided to try to wake this morning to see my first Indonesian sunrise, so I was up a little before
6am. And a lovely sunrise it was. Again, it was a fairly noisy place with animals etc so I don't think I would have slept much past that anyway!
The sunrise was very pretty, lots of reds and oranges and yellow. Worth getting up for, seeing the sun rise over the ocean and the valley more so. After watching the sunrise it was back to the room for a shower and to get ready to head out on a six hour trek. Breakfast was a banana pancake with condensed milk which made a nice change from the eggs I have been having every day for the last week. I am over eggs, and over rice too for that matter!
We departed just after
8:30am with a local guide towards our first stop - a traditional Lombokian (is that the right terminology?) village, we spent probably about an hour there, wandering among cows and goats and birds and dogs.
Our guide showed us into some of the rooms/houses where entire families would sleep, sometimes up to 18 people
in an area where we probably wouldn't think to sleep any more than four people. She also told us about marriages and how many villagers marry when they are 14-15 years old. It is usually an arranged marriage and they then usually have children within a year. On that basis, if I was a local I would probably have grandchildren by now... Scary thought!
Then it was the start of a stroll through rice fields and to the hut where we would have our fresh coconut. To get the fresh coconut, our local guide had to go and find someone to cut it down from the tree. This 'someone' ended up being a boy of about 10, who scaled the tree with a rather large cleaver, before shaking coconuts onto the ground while his mates tossed them to us. The boys then joined us for fresh coconut in the hut. Dangerous job for a kid if you ask me!
From there it was a walk down to the first of the two waterfalls we would see today. A lot of the track was slippery from the rain yesterday, and consisted of lots of rocks and mud and downhill
slides.
Given my legs were still slightly sore from several days ago, I knew that I would likely end up in a bit of pain tomorrow, as this trek would simply add to the previous screaming by my leg muscles. But going downhill proved nothing compared to going uphill.
Being a Sunday, there were lots of locals at the first waterfall swimming and just generally relaxing. Lots of tourists too. A bit further of a walk towards the second waterfall brought us to a river crossing. We had been told that there was a river crossing, but one look at it and I told our guide I had no intention of giving is a shot - largely because it was rock climbing through fast running water in thongs.
I was struggling enough rock climbing up and downhill without the addition of water! Christina and Grant both gave it a shot, Grant turning back when he lost a thong in the fast morning water. Gede, our Geckos guide, decided to stay with us while Christina and the two local guides pushed on ahead anyway.
While they were off finding the second waterfall, i sat on a rock
dangling my feet in the freezing way and watching the rapids wash over the rocks. It was quite pleasant until my feet started to go slightly numb from the icy water.
Gede and Grant went for a short dip though! Once Christina and the local guide had come back we all headed back on the oath we had come from, some of which was not fun at all. Mostly uphill, lots of stairs and by the top when we got back to our hotel I was done in.
It was after
2pm by this time so it was a quick lunch and shower before a free afternoon. Had a Bintang while sitting in a gazebo across from my room and while reading a book which was quite pleasant.
While sitting there we got to watch some monkeys who had come down to the general area of the hotel and were 'monkey-ing' about. Jumping from trees, cleaning each other, bickering, etc etc. At about
7pm we headed to dinner where Gede had us taste some of his local palm wine (quite unusual tasting) and a fairly early evening, this town doesn't have a whole lot to do!
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