The first night in Lovina, we ate dinner that had been cooked by Wewin. Wewin would look after us for the next two and a half weeks. If we attempted to do anything for ourselves we would hear, 'I do', we felt extremely guilty letting her 'do' as she is 8 months pregnant, but she would have none of us 'doing' for ourselves while she was around. We would have to be sneaky and not let her see us doing'
We had a few quiet drinks and sat taking in our surroundings. We kept hearing a loud screaming noise, Arrrrrhhhhhhhhhhh, Arrrrrhhhhhhhhhhh,Whoooooo, Whoooooo, what the hell is that. Is it human or animal, we would discover what it was two days later. At 7pm there was suddenly a cacophony of cicadas, their song was so loud you could not hear yourself think. The song lasted for just on 15 minutes, this would happen every single night of our stay, you could set your watch by the cicadas.
The sky was so clear and the stars sparkled brightly, it would stay like this for most of our stay. We would see the dark clouds up over the hills and hear the thunder rolling loudly but for a week and a half we only had a couple of showers at night. The last few days would be stormy and at times almost cyclonic. We would have a couple of incredible storms. During these storms we would see the torchlight flickering outside. When we investigated there would be Putu or Komang (security) sloshing around in the pouring rain rescuing our laundry that had blown away and securing the outside furniture and blinds to ensure that we had a dry place to sit the next day. On these stormy days we would try to get Wewin to leave early to get home before the rain, but again she would say 'it's okay' and insist on staying until she was "done".
Suddenly one of us spotted a frog or maybe a toad and then another smaller one hopping off across the kitchen / living room floor. We would later learn that these interesting creatures left the hidden comfort of their home under one of the kitchen dressers every night at about the same time and head out into the night. If you happened to be up at daybreak the next day as we often were, you would see them heading back home again. At first they seemed a little nervous of us but after the first couple of days they didn't seem to mind us at all. One night K & N left their snorkel bags and sandals on the floor outside their room. The first frog came hopping home followed by the smaller one. For a moment we thought he had found his way into k's snorkel bag. Maybe he wants to visit Canada? No, here he comes hopping through k's sandal in through the heel and out through the toe and then home we go.
The ceiling of the kitchen / living area was covered in gecko's. One very large gentleman sneaked a look at us from above, we must have looked really scary because he quickly backed away. We would see him and another huge gecko sneaking looks at us most nights while we were there. We could tell them apart because one had lost most of his tail. They would come down from the rafters and scurry across the wall and hide behind the paintings, just poking heads out occasionally. I would also find myself in the firing line of gecko poo more than once while we were here. What is it that I do to attract gecko poo, no one else seems to get hit as many times as I do.
We finally decided it was time for bed. Amazing no gecko's in the bedroom. What a wonderful beginning to our stay in Lovina