Volcano?

First of all, I would like to thank the legendary Joe Curry for mentioning his comment on my blog number 1, complaining of my lack of response, which had me discover all of your awesome comments. Here I was thinking that not a single soul on this planet, or any other of the other 8 in this solar system, is reading any of my blah only to find out that you are loving it - thank you! And Joe I guess….

SO, today we got up at bloody 4:30AM to drive up to Gunung Batur, enjoy a wonderful yoga session during a sunrise view of the volcano, followed by a scrumptious breakfast, a 22km downhill bike ride and lunch back here at the hotel.

Now let me tell you what really happened:

The bells rang as expected at 4:30AM and we got up to get ready for our little trip. Still silent. After inhaling as much fruit as I could, that was the only thing available, knowing that I would be starving by 7:30AM, which was the scheduled time for breakfast (3 hrs without actual food in my stomach including a 45min car ride and 1 hr of yoga - are you kidding me?!). I had a hard time staying awaking during the car ride (oh jeez, I'm sitting on our balcony and a HUGE cockroach just crawled out from underneath my chair - room here I come!!!), but I wanted to stay awake to watch all the Balinese people prepare for Galungan. Galungan is one of the two most important holidays in Bali. The days leading up to Galungan are said the be quite dangerous due to the arrival of various gods on the island, there are also evil creatures from the underworld that find their way up to earth. Therefore, offerings have to be made for both good and evil in order to keep the balance to keep peace and harmony on earth. The day itself is a celebration of the arrival of the highest heavenly creature, Sanghyang Widhi Wasa, and other gods into the temples here in Bali where they will stay for ten days and then return to their heavenly place on Kuningan. All the villages are wonderfully decorated with palm tree posts in front of every house and everyone dressed up in their finest clothes. Check out the pics!

I managed to stay awake only to find our "volcano in the sunrise" completely, and I mean totally covered in……fog. Still in silence I kept or better yet, had to keep all my thoughts to myself, but the expressions on everyone's face when we were setting up for our yoga session in front of the fog covered volcano said more than a thousand words - the video won't show you all of the faces, but I would like to say that mine pretty much speaks for everyone's in that case. Please also note the cold temperature adding to everyone's excitement….

7:30AM rolled around and I was wasting away due to my hunger and couldn't get inside fast enough only to find: a fruit plate. I just about wanted to scream, which I could have done at that point, because we were done being silent once yoga finished. Enjoying the sound of my wonderful voice again, I sat down next to Mark and just looked at him in a very desperate-hungry way when someone all of a sudden started bringing out bread, muffins and eggs. Scoreeeeee! I ate until I felt comfortably full, and believe me was I ever tempted to eat more, but I decided that I was good for now. Everything tasted delicious and I indeed enjoyed my first pieces of bread and muffin after having eaten raw food for 9 some days by now. After finishing breakfast we were off to our bike ride, still foggy outside, which also consisted of stopping in small culturally, preserved Balinese villages to see the celebration of this important day up close - what an experience!

An hour into our mostly down hill bike ride, my rear started to hurt and for the remaining 2 hours of biking I switched butt cheeks every 10 minutes or so switching it up by practicing my hands free riding skills.

We arrived back here around noon and I was hungry once again. Lunch consistent of: a bit of brown rice fried with veggies and eggs and another tasty green salad…. Did I just say tasty green salad?

The rest of the afternoon was pretty quiet as everyone had some sort of spa treatment booked or just caught up on sleep or sun tanning. Half way through the afternoon my tummy started to request some food again, guess it is safe to say now that my appetite is back, and I started to look for food after Helen laughed at my hysterically having listened to me saying that I was starving about 5 times in 10 minutes while sitting on my bed reading. I thought I would have to settle for fruit once again when I discovered home roasted curried peanuts in a jar next to the fruit trait - YES!

2 hours later when we were headed down to the yoga hall for our restorative yoga session, I was hungry again. Thinking that it wasn't a big deal since it was only restorative yoga, I quickly realized that I better hope for a filing dinner when we started practicing headstands…. Namaste to that.

My eyes are now slowly but surely closing down on me as I sit here and write down my report. Dinner was good, yet still not hunger satisfying enough and accompanied by the topic of "child birth in detail" with two mothers sharing their experiences with the entire table, which made me think of how I am still a child myself and don't have to worry about that for a while or I'd like to think so. Due to my dissatisfaction from dinner, my day of eating ended once again with a plate of fruit in front of me just to quiet my tummy for the night. Day number 5 in retreat number 2 shall follow soon….

I would now like to take the time and respond to some of your lovely comments on my earlier posts:

@ Kelsey: Dear Jolly Green Giant, I'm glad you're enjoying my reports and I hope the house is still standing somewhat. Spank everyone's ass for me once and tell them I do sort of miss them - and you!

@ Patricia: Open up your own event management company and show those Quebecoise how it is done in Ontario ;) I shall keep taking pictures for you to be part of this adventure too.

@ Aliza: Was that enough about the pooping or did you need more? It is back to "normal" in case you are wondering… Can't wait to see you either other half - 10 days!

Last and least (no that is not a typo I meant to say that in stead of last but not least):

@Joe Curry: Naturally did I not only Qi Gong into a Gongshow but more so our entire retreat, which was received quite well by all the participants with one of them telling me during our good byes: "You have inspired us all and I really mean that when I say it." Duh, Curry, duh.

❤.

P.S: We never actually did see the volcano up close due to the fog and once we were more than half way down, it started appearing in the far distance, too far away to get a good picture of it, but believe me it was quite impressive.

If the pics are still not rotated correctly, then please do let me know if one of you figures out how to do it lol