Bali-Day 3

Today had been very interesting! (And tiring). We started the day at 5:15 so we could join our host on a trip to the local market. It opens at 3:00am but she prefers to go around 5:30 and she does so every morning to get fresh food for the day. 

It was not a long walk but I was amazed at the number of people out and about already. Puta told us that the market is the only one for the village so even those who lived up the hill (yesterday's adventure) would come down to visit this market.

Picture a farmers market without stalls and just open tables and all kinds of produce, fruit, meat, nuts, beans and rice...it was crowded too!  We were surprised to see apples at some of the stalls and even more surprised that they were from Washington!  Apples don't grow on Bali of course.

We came back and went right to the meditation room to practice yoga with Zanzan. We watched the sun come up and practiced some yoga poses, breathing and meditation.  Then it was time for breakfast.

Afterward, Kadek, our guide arrived again to take us on another trek...this time to the Sekumpul waterfalls. www.newbali.info/.../sekumpul-waterfall/ 

These are reached by a "easy" two hour walk that is "mostly" flat...followed by about 45 minutes of up and down. We would start at 9:00 see the falls, swim and be back for lunch..my skill at easy, mostly flat walks was not taken into consideration...but I am getting ahead of myself...

To be fair, our walk did start out flat. We saw people out planting rice because it was still "cool" (all things are relative)

A little way down the path we came upon a dam which controls the water coming down from the falls. 

We walked by rice fields...

Along beside the river (note the handy bridge), 

And through the jungle.  Note the width of the path. This is used by motorcycles....this is part of the village and people live up here.

We came upon a "bigger" bridge so we tried it out   

Along the way we came upon this weir construction. The project is going to generate electricity when finished...it appeared to be a family working 

A glimpse of the falls tells us we are in the right spot!

...though I didn't really doubt it :)

As we hiked up the hill and I found the going a bit tough, we came upon a young woman carrying a small child and as if that wasn't enough of a load.. a basket loaded with goods on her head...I was humbled...but factored in my age...and still felt badly out of shape :(

After we went up and up and up, we started going down. This was much more challenging. No steps and just a tough trail to follow. Sometimes there were things to hold onto, and when there weren't our guide gave me his hand.

My feet making the next move...

Finally we could really see the falls!

We took off our shoes and waded the rest of the way. For a person who goes barefoot in the house, this was, at times, a challenging experience.  Finally we arrived and had our reward...a swim!  Of course with all the spray and my desire to keep my phone dry, the swim pictures were taken through a ziplock bag...still you should get the idea. The water was refreshing and not cold. We swam under all but the biggest waterfall.

We left after this refreshing break and went to look at another of the water falls. There are seven and the first place was falls two and three.  Bob walked into see falls number one but my bare feet wanted to stay in my shoes. 

A peekaboo view of falls number one.

Our waterfall viewing was finished and all that was left were the 300 stairs up the other side...

Some had railings and others didn't...I still don't know which is more difficult....the slope or the stairs.  And, by the way, I can't take credit for counting the stairs, I was told how many there were :)

Amazingly, right at the top we found a...

Coffee and spice shop!  We stopped for a drink and purchased some...at a good price since the owner is Puta's friend.  She grows all the beans etc right there and makes it herself. She showed us a ripe cacao fruit 

The white lumpy things are the seeds. We tried the white pulpy stuff around the bean and it was quite sweet.  Bob ate a raw bean and said it was kind of bitter.  She then showed us a vanilla plant and showed how the flowers are fertilized by hand and form the bean

Cacao coffee vanilla cloves - these are all dried in the sun. Then coffee and cacao are roasted as well. 

So, we were heading uphill (still more uphill) to meet our ride when we saw the last amazing thing for this trip...a spider web up high across the path and a spider as big as my hand...at least.  

Yep...an exciting end to the adventure...just glad the web was well above head height...