Journal Entry 15 May 17, Lake Badugal in the volcano mountains

We left Lovina heading inland and I was really wishing I had my 1150 cc's (instead of my 100 cc's) to get us up THESE steep, beyond-belief roads, which are twice as bad as the last.  How do they even make them?  Spicy bike crawled up in first gear, of course, loaded down with the two of us and all our gear, poor girl.  Most of the narrow path roads were in good condition, lucky for me, so I could look a little as we rode through the most adorable villages, one hanging along the sides of the steepest pot-holed narrow road.  

These beautiful, friendly faces saying "hallo" with a big smile and a wave, gave me the warmest insides!  


The most fun is stopping for petrol.  No English at these little roadside stands.  The gas is sitting in bottles on rickety shelves.  We easily communicate our needs saying "premium, premium!" and the men or children call to the women who come out -like it's a meal to serve or something, and careful pour the gas in, sometimes not even using a funnel.  The price is 5000 rp, which is less than 60 cents for a two liter fill up.  

Staying off the main highways has been the most incredible experience for seeing how people live and work, not to mention the views on these windy little mountain road-paths.  Off in the distance, misty volcanoes rise up and on a clear moment we can even sometimes see the craggy coastlines.  The only problem is there are no signs for what roads we are on (which makes my expensive "First atlas ever made in Bali" almost useless) and the few signs pointing at forks to villages are helpful but only when we know what these villages are and where they eventually end up.  So when we get to a fork now, and I'll tell you why in a minute, we stop ask in cave man English saying "Tabanan? TABANAN?" or whatever city we are headed to, and they point us nicely on our way with a smile.  




So at one point today after driving for nearly two hours acclimatizing wonderfully to the top of the Mountain where it is cold (or just right for us-like, 70's) and people have firewood stacked outside there rustic shack homes and are wearing stocking caps.  Then zipping all the way down the other side, braking every two-seconds, coming back into the heat with views of the other? Coastline? Already??  Only to discover ourselves right back to where we started (but a few km. West)!  No kidding.  So we drove the 15 minutes back into Lovina to have a good lunch, only to start out again, but with our new method of stopping to ask at every fork.  It was worth it for the experience, best views and villages of the entire trip thus far.  It’s not like we have a schedule, or even much of a plan.  It’s about the ride, not the destination! (shouldn’t life be like that?)  

Farmers were drying coffee beans on the roadside on natural tarps.  Some were harvesting cloves, mmm the smell, vegetables and fruit.  Magically nimble folk appearing right out of these jungle caverns with loads they pulled from what look to us like the wild.  A man harvesting long grasses of something near the lake.  
Heading down the actual other side, some of the roads had potholes, in fact it was getting worse though they were easier to spot as grass was growing out of some of them.  But no lorry’s!  So it was a nice ride overall.  

We drove the delicious pink sunset down into the Mountain Lakes villages
of Buyan and Bedugal and could see all the way to the coast from the top before descending to find a place to crash.  

Almost too tired to eat dinner, but a great day of riding.  Morgan a trooper and loving it with me we are both in sync with our traveling now.