Getting off the beaten path....

     We have now been on Bali for a week, Thursday we got an earlier start and wanted to check out another spot called Green Bowls, also on the other side of the bukit. We packed up the backpack with a few snacks and waters, and then got the surfboard on the scooter and took off. Once again I looked at the map before we left to get a mental image of what roads to take to get there, I love looking at a map and then just heading off and hoping I get it right. Well we ended up at the place I wanted to get to, but it ended up being a resort that wanted 250k rupiah ($25 USD) just to go down to the beach, some spots I look for are just a dot on a map and usually not in the right spot, so they always take a lil extra finding to get to. So once again we head back to Uluwatu, grab some food at our favorite warung, and chill for a bit before I went for a surf. I had a good hour and half surf with not to to many people out, I also tried surfing a new peak that is a lil more up the point that I got some fun backside snaps on. We headed back to the room to take our mid day relax session which usually consists of a dip in the pool, maybe a coca cola or ice cream, and watch some funny or surfing youtube videos. We went down out in front of our place to Bingin for an evening surf and smoothie, it was max low tide and i had to basically walk 150 feet on the reef step by step, pretty painful and annoying. But from the beach we both saw perfect left draining barrels, it is a hard wave to surf because the take off spot is so small, there's basically about 15 guys within 10 sq ft all trying to get a wave. Most of the time a local gets it and makes it all look to easy, I got one barrel but tried to stall to hard and didn't make it, got a few more smaller ones, then caught one did a snap and my board slide way more than it should have. I knew exactly what was wrong, flipped my board over and of course a fin had fallen out, so that was the end of the session for me, on my way in I got a few cuts on my hands and feet from the reef being so shallow. Jeremy and I enjoyed a smoothie before heading back up to grab dinner and passing out because we both were exhausted.
     Friday morning I ate a quick pbj and headed towards town to ship a few things I had bought for a friend and also for somebody who had donated via my blog here. The whole process at the post office took almost an hour, the language barrier just makes everything take a lil longer, plus there were a few other people there, and I had to package the gifts and write out the addresses. Finally I got out of there stopped by the market to get more Peanut butter, stopped for more gas, then made my way back to the room where Jeremy was kicking it. We basically layed low most of the day, looked into some other spots and airfare where we might want to travel to, I started getting board so I took the scooter on some adventuring. Most of my friend's and family that know me know I always like to explore, especially when dirt biking, I'm always looking at different trails while riding and more often then not get separated from the group because I explored a new trail a saw. I can't help myself it's just who I am, well this exploring really paid off because I found a road into a dirt trail that took us right to a spot next door called Dreamland, the way the map shows its 6.5 miles, the way I found is not even 1.5 miles. So now it's like my go to spot when Bingin is to low tide, after I went over the other side of the bukit and literally took any road I could off the main road and towards the beach. Lots of dead ends, people asking where are you going nothing back here, but finally found some roads to look outs on the cliff to see some surfable spots. I also stumbled across a beautiful temple with lots of chinese tourists eating and taking pictures with the view. I ended up meeting a surf that had just got out of the water named Peter from Aus, he had been coming to Bali for over 20 years and had some great knowledge. He explained how to get to a few surf spots I was looking for and what tide there good on, lots of good info to make surfing here in Bali a lil easier for us. When I got back me and Jeremy were both hungry, so we went to find a lil mexican place a friend had told me about, we had to explore for awhile until we finally found it down the road at Padang, it's called Sunset Grill, and it was decent mex, of course not as good as home but nice to mix it up!
     So Saturday I wanted to show Jeremy some of the spots I had explored and found the day before, after having some snacks for breakfast, we hit the road with my surfboard strapped on and a backpack. It took me a bit to find some of the spots since I went down so many different roads the day before, but we ended up getting to them and he was amazed how beautiful the scenery was and nobody around, we also brought the camera to take some pictures, as you can see below! Our goal was to find a spot I have been seeing on the map called Green Bowls, we looked for a it a few days before but weren't successful, since I had met the Australian Peter and he told me how to get there I thought we would give it another shot. I followed his directions and they were perfect everything he explained made since and we for sure would have gone down the wrong road without knowing it. As we got to the cliff to check the waves below, a lady came up to Jeremy asking if he wanted to buy a bracelet, he started looking at one ladies bracelet, then another lady came over to show him hers. I look over and say "here comes the heard", next thing you know Jeremy is surrounded by half dozen ladies trying to get him to buy their bracelet! I was just standing a bit away laughing and just saying no no, go ask him, pushing them all back to Jeremy, check the video below to get a lil idea, haha it was one of the funniest situations I've seen on this trip so far. After he haggled with all the ladies for about 15 minutes, he got a bracelet, and we headed down the 300 something steps to the beach. We got down there and the waves were probably 8ft faces and pretty mushy, but we came this far I said F it I'm going out, as I started to paddle out a few other guys came out as well so ended up being about 5 of us surfing for 45 minutes. It was okay to get some big drops and a few turns, and of course go right since every wave I have surfed here so far had been a left, and being regular you just want to go front side sometimes! We made our way back up the 300 steps, on the scooter, back to our place, to have a late lunch. I relaxed for awhile, then went over to Dreamland to catch a surf, it was super fun, the wave is like a shorter trestles/southside hb, can get a few rippable turns off hen pump to the inside to get another turn section. I got back and we sat down for dinner around 7, it was kinda busy here so took a lil longer for the food, but as always it's delicious and filling, another good day in Bali!
     Sunday was a mini holiday for Jeremy at least, since we were headed to the doctors to get his stitches out! We got to the doctors around 10am and got right into the room, the doctor to a few minutes to prep , then went to work on cut and removing the stitches, if you would like to watch and see my reactions, click here. They came out easily and pretty fast, after we asked the doctor if he could super glue over the cut and stitch marks, he gave us a blank stare as we handed him the super glue bottle. After a lil while of explaining and saying it's okay just go for it, he put a line of glue over the cut, I could tell it wasn't enough so I got the tube and went at it to fill the whole area and all the lil stitch holes! After paying the $15 it cost to remove the stitches we went next door for some groceries and I got Jeremy a lil ice cream, because he was such a lil trooper, haha. Once we were back to our place we had a snack and checked impossibles which looked pretty decent form the cliff, we both grabbed our step ups and headed out there. It ended up being super messy, sideways winds, pretty walled, just all around not that fun, we got out after about 40 minutes. We had lunch, chilled around the room and pool for awhile, and started checking some forecasts again, we decided to try to get out to Dreamland which I got pretty fun the day before. We headed to the beach quite awhile before low tide was going to start hitting to hopefully get some waves before the tide stated dropping more and gets to crowded. That basically exactly happened, got a few waves to ourselves and within 30 min there was 10 other guys out and waves were getting better, after about an hour there were 30 of us out and waves were even better. We were both pretty stoked though since we got our fair share of waves and they were all rights, Jeremy was having a blast being back in the water and it was nice to have somebody to sit with and chat to out there. Got back to the room showered up and hit an early dinner at the mex place we had tried a few days before but instead we ordered a large pizza and two large Bintang's, great end to the day I must say!
     Monday we were attempting dawn patrol and did our best by getting to Uluwatu by 7:30am, it was sprinkling a bit on our way, as we arrived and was checking the surf it just started absolutely pouring out of nowhere. It turned the already steep, sketchy, messed up path down to the beach into a river, we decided we probably couldn't scooter back in the rain so might as well surf. We basically floated downt o the water as if we were on a water slide and paddled out as it was still pouring rain, but after about 30 minutes it let up and turned the sky into the most vivid double rainbow I had ever seen. The rainbow only lasted 10 min or so and throughout the rain and rainbows we still managed to have a fun 2 hour sesh with a few less people out then normal. We did our usual walk up the stairs check some photos the guys got of us then sat down to enjoy a meal at our favorite spot Salen Warung and watched the waves. We had our normal relax sesh for a few hours during the middle of the day with a few pbj's to hold us over, and we both got to skype the family again, since the internet had been on and off the past few days. We decided to attempt to go back over to Green Bowls and try to get an uncrowded mid tide session, but the wind was onshore and just a mess, so we made our way back across the bukit to Balangan and also checked Dreamland, but nothing looked to decent enough to get us excited. We called it quits, I worked on this blog for awhile then we hit a new spot for dinner we had stopped by earlier for gas, there prices were a bit cheaper than where we had been eating and seemed like a fun environment. The food was great, cheap filling, we stayed around and chatted with the owner for awhile telling her we will come back tomorrow, unfortunately she was closing down for a few days to prep meals and gifts for huge ceremony her family was having in a few days. We poked into the surf shop called Flame Balls next door to check out a few boards that caught our eye, ended up also chatting with the owner. Super cool guy we assumed was from Germany with his accent, he gave us lots of info on our thoughts of trying to travel to other islands nearby. We ended the night sitting on out balcony, scoping the internet researching islands, surf spots, accommodations, and prices to travel nearby. We haven't put anything in ink yet but we are seriously considering trying to do a trip in a few weeks to the island of Sumbawa, home to Lakey Peak.

Jeremy trying to buy a bracelet and getting bombarded buy all the ladies trying to sell him one, watch the video by clicking the video tab above!

A look at the reef out front on a semi low tide, you can now imagine what the bottom looks like, but covered with urchins.

One of the cool cliff spots I found with a lil run down hangout.

The abandoned resort I came across and brought Jeremy back to, he was just as confused as I was.