A waterfall, snorkeling & a boutique hotel

There are loads and loads of waterfalls in Bali. For example, this is a short two-day trip by the intriguing Salt in our Hair blogger:

If you want more, here’s a list of 31 waterfalls on the island of the gods.

We went to Banyumala Waterfalls and it was wondrous. The hike is 15 minutes down a fairly rugged trail, and a sweaty 30 minutes back out, but if you are in reasonable shape its very worthwhile.

Before the trail to the waterfalls there’s a small cafe (known in Indonesia as a warung) that serves both Indonesian and Western food. The entry price for accessing the trail is 30,000 rupiah per person. From our retreat it is approximately 1 hour and 50 minutes to the trailhead.

After Banyumala Falls we went to Lovina, a small town on the northern coast of Bali. We found a delightful new boutique hotel, with ten rooms and a yummy cafe. (Room rate during the low season is 450,000 rupiah or $31 USD. A great value).

The next day we went snorkeling with Donnie. We met him while walking to the beach the previous evening, and for 75,000 rupiah per person ($5.15 USD) he would take us snorkeling (25,000 rupiah less per person than the hotel rate). He also takes people to see the dolphins, but we didn’t want to wake up at 6:00am lol.

In the video below I got nipped by a fish. It didn’t hurt but it was a bit startling:

Some tips:

• When traveling by scooter, bring water for your brakes. When coming down out of the mountains towards Lovina the road is steep and the brakes heat up to the point where the brake cables stretch and can make braking difficult or impossible. Watering the disc brakes immediately resolves the problem.
• Pace yourself when coming back up from the waterfalls. You are in the tropics and the heat can get the best of you.
• Lovina is a quiet town and so its best to slow down and enjoy the slower pace. Surprisingly most of the locals we met speak English quite well, so language difficulties shouldn’t be a problem.

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