Marc and I started our long journey back down from Lovina in the north to Nusa Dua in the south for one simple reason: we needed to get our visa extended. And so we left at noon and started heading south, on the way stopping at the largest waterfall in Bali: Git Git. After stopping at Git Git town instead of the waterfall thanks to Google Maps’ inaccuracy, we found our way, parked the jeep, refused the offers for a guide (which we find ourselves doing on a regular basis in Indonesia) and started the walk down the path to the waterfall. Walking through the path we passed by little shops selling beautiful souvenirs and also a guy selling Luwak coffee with the Civets cats that they use to process the coffee in a cage and their faeces with the digested coffee beans on display. After 10 minutes of walking we arrived in front of a beautiful, 35 metre high and powerful waterfall. Over the past 4 months of travelling we have seen many waterfalls, but this was by far the biggest and most breathtaking of them all. We enjoyed a swim in the pool under the waterfall and I tried to get as close to it as possible but the water was so powerful that there was a strong current, hurricane winds and water spraying everywhere. I managed to get within 2 metres before I had to stop for fear of my bikini top and pants being blown off me. Marc managed to dive under and surface behind the waterfall where he stayed for a minute or so before coming back.
Gitgit waterfall.
We spent around 3 hours at this waterfall swimming, enjoying the view, taking photos and having a drink nearby. After we left, we stopped for a late lunch at Lake Bratan and continued from there at around 5pm. What was (according to Google Maps) an hour and a half drive down to Nusa Dua, turned into a 4 hour drive because of traffic. The Indonesians are smart enough to do road works on a single carriageway (the most main road of all Bali) during peak hour.
Anyway, our stay in Nusa Dua was completely devoid of adventure. We made the trip to Denpasar to start our visa extension process and then returned the jeep for 3 days to save some cash and to get it serviced (our poor Jimmy had been pushed to his limits). So we had to hang around Nusa Dua for 3 days to wait until our visa was accepted and therefore we could pay for it. Since the public beaches in the area aren’t so great and the private ones are owned by massive 5 star resorts, we spent 3 days of luxury living, sneaking in hotels or going to beach clubs for lunch, and spending the day literally eating and chilling by their pools. It was a hard knock life.
The highlight of our 4 day stay here: we found out that two Maltese guys we know were on holiday in Bali and so we met up with them for some dinner and mohitos one night. It was fun catching up and it felt great being around Maltese again (apart from Maria in Ubud, they were the first Maltese we had met in 4 months).
On the last day we got the jeep back, paid our visa and headed for a short 3 day trip to Java to climb our first Indonesian volcano, which also happens to have an acid crater lake and is the only volcano in the world where you can witness sulphur mining. Stay tuned to hear all about it 🙂
-Vanessa-
Marc and Van Explore 