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So today Saskia and the German couple got up at 4am to go and hike up the Volcano to watch the sunrise. I was absolutely gutted to be left lying in bed feeling like ass, as I had really wanted to climb it too. I considered just going and doing as much as possible, but when I sat up and my body was hurting all over I scrapped the idea. Its so annoying to have gone all the way there, to then not be able to do it!
Georgie and I had some breakfast about 8am, and then both went back to bed to wait for the others to get back. By the time we were ready to go it was about 10am, and I actually felt a bit better, which was lucky as we were going to have to drive all day to get back 'home'.
We decided to go a different route back, so we didnt have to go straight through the middle of the city again. That meant that we would go up towards to the Northern coast, then cut across west and down virtually straight all the way back to Canggu.
The first couple of hours were ok, the scenery up in the mountains around the volcano was awesome and it was cool but dry. We then descended all the way down back to sea level for a short time, at which time it was lunch. By then I felt absolutely horrible and just wanted to be in bed. We stopped at a little place on the side of the road for the others to eat, and looked at the next stage of the route. It was a steep incline for about 25km up into the last mountainous area, where we knew it was hammering with rain and going to be cold.
Very unexcited about the prospect of being cold and wet again, we stalled for a while at lunch, then set off again. Sure enough it was soon raining consistently and getting colder. Plus the road conditions were far from ideal, with spray from cars and slippy surfaces. About 1/3 of the way up we all had to stop for fuel - it was 3L to fill up the scooter, and only cost $1.50! At this point we discovered the back tyre of the scooter Saskia and I were on, was flat as a pancake. It had felt a bit dodgy for a while, but with such limited experience I thought nothing of it.
Fortunately next to the little shack/shop where we got fuel (which is stacked on wooded stands next to the road, in 'Absolute Vodka' bottles!), was a little mechanic shop. Long story short a nice old bloke changed our tyre for $15, and we were ready to go again.
Also the shop owner had gone off and met his sister, and come back with Poncho's for Saskia, Georgie and I...buying those for $7 was probably the best decision we made all day!
During the confusion Max and Laura (the German couple) had driven off thinking we were following, and despite looking for them while Saskia and I waited for the scooter to be fixed, Georgie couldn't find them. It didn't seem like much of a problem at first, but then we realised we had about 60km to drive without any GPS!
The 3 of us set off again, and the conditions just got worse the closer to the top of the mountain you got. Eventually we reached the top, and then it was a quicker decent down the other side. Near the bottom was a large lake with lots of little shops etc, and with a huge stroke of luck Georgie spotted the Germans scooter parked up. We stopped and found out what had happened to them, whilst drinking tea and eating doughnuts - about the only things I could stomach.
From there it was soon back down onto sea level and down 1 main road all the way back down to Canggu. We saw some incredible scenery like paddy fields and banana groves on the sides of the hills, but with lots of low cloud and Knowning we had to push on to get home before dark I didn't get any photos unfortunately.
The last stint of the drive went without incident, other than the odd wrong turning and Georgie driving down the pavements to get back on course. At one point we also came across a work force trying to resurface a section of road, but the Bali traffic lived up to expectations and was causing havock - scooters in all directions cutting up buses and forcing their way down the wrong side of the road etc, all good fun!
It even managed to stop raining for the last hour or so, which was a nice change!
We eventually made it back about 6:30pm, by which time I was absolutely exhausted and just ready to sleep. I had a quick dip in the pool to freshen up, which did nothing but lower my body temp too much, and then got into bed freezing.
I woke up again about 9:30pm with everyone making lots of noice near my room. It was Kira and Win's last night, and they had some sort of Hot wine/Rum/Orange Juice/Caramlised sugar thing going on. I got up and sat with them for a while, but felt absolutely crap. I had a hot/cold feever going on again, just genially felt sick. I went back to bed a while later, just before Win arrived.
The others told her I was ill, and being a doctor back home she offered to check me over and see what was wrong. She seemed quite shocked at the temperature I was managing, but came to the conclusion it was just some sort of Flu like Virus, which my body would have to deal with in due course. She offered to give me some drugs to help and get me some energy drinks, as I wasn't really eating.
We got on really well in general so had a catch up about the day we'd had scootering back, and she had been rock climbing at PadangPadang (which sounded sick!). In the end though I couldn't stay awake anymore so crashed, and she went drinking with the others for her last night.
(Photo - The 2 min walk down the road to the beach from the Villa Serenity).
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