Margarita, Victor, Eva, Marc and I (divided into our jeep and one motorbike) drove up to Lovina in the early afternoon. Having seen three foreigners in a jeep full of luggage, a local guy on a motorbike decided to seize the opportunity to promote his hostel. He drove up to the driver’s side of our jeep and, while both Marc and he were driving (on a main road, please note) he asked us where we were going, if we needed a hostel and gave us a card and brief explanation of where his hostel is. Only in Asia.
We ended up staying at another place called Mumbul, as we got a really good deal on Adoga (we paid around 3 euro each per night in a massive family room with a nice pool and breakfast included). As soon as we checked in two local guys approached us to sell diving, snorkelling and dolphin watching tours. After a little bit of haggling we managed to put the price of the dolphin trip down to almost half his original price and so we booked and paid a deposit for the following day. Note to self: don’t ever buy from local guys who show up at your hotel in Asia. Long story short, we discovered that if we went directly to the fishermen on the beach, the standard price was much less than what we had paid. To add on to that, Marc woke up unwell and so we asked if we could postpone mine and Marc’s trip, he said yes, and the following day we waited at 5am and no one showed up. We ended up going to the company his receipt claimed he worked for and they said that he is only supposed to be selling diving packages as they have nothing to do with dolphin watching. After trying to get a hold of him for a while, a “friend” of his said he will take us on the trip the following day without extra charge.
So Marc and I extended our stay in Lovina and we regretted it afterwards. The dolphin trip was a complete waste of time and money. I had never seen dolphins in the wild and I was pretty excited, but when I realised what I was witnessing that day, my excitement turned to complete sadness. First of all, there were around a hundred of these boats on the water. Secondly, the water was so filthy, plastic bags and bottles and just dirt everywhere it was disgusting to see and know that dolphins lived in this environment. Thirdly, these boats huddled close together until someone saw a few dolphin fins and then all hundred boats would start the race to get a closer look at these poor dolphins, who would disappear and then maybe show their fins again 5 minutes later. Definitely a very commercialised trip that has turned something natural and beautiful into something dirty and sad. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.
To be quite honest, Lovina in general didn’t really impress me. The sea was dirty and murky, the sand was black with lava and most of the beach was part of a dirty local village with pigs and chickens running around freely.
In fact we spent a lot of our time here just relaxing by the pool at our hotel. The best part of the trip was probably when Eva, Marc and I went in search of a coffee plantation and ended up at a 5 star resort (that was surrounded by its own coffee plantation, so it was a semi-successful trip) on top of a mountain. We had a luxurious lunch overlooking the mountaineous scenery below us and afterwards managed to sneak into a jacuzzi and just chilled there for the day.
What made our stay in Lovina better, was the fact that we were around good company. Unfortunately though, the 5 of us had to part ways after Lovina and we hope that we will cross paths again in the future.
-Vanessa-
Marc and Van Explore 