Nusa Penida

Day 9
Today Emma and I planned a day trip to Nusa Penida (a newly popular island off Bali’s main island) which included pick up and drop off from the hostel, our boat pass and a driver on the island for the day. We packed our bags up in the morning before getting picked up and tried to check out a day early because of the AC situation but no one was at the front desk since we got picked up at 6:30am. Our driver dropped us off at the port and got us the passes for the boat and said we would get picked up by another driver once we arrived at Nusa Penida. The boat ride took about 45 minutes on a small crowded boat so it was far from a smooth ride. Once we got on land we were met by our new driver (he was supposed to be english speaking but we had difficulties communicating with him) and we were off to Kelingking Beach, our first stop of the day. Nusa Penida became popular through instagram over the recent years and Kelingking Beach (with the T-Rex shaped cliff) is probably the main reason why. IT IS GORGEOUS! You can walk all the way down to the beach but it takes about an hour and the stairs are steep and narrow. We walked down far enough to get a good view and pictures. Just like any other tourist attraction this place can get packed, but with Corona there weren’t nearly as many people as I am sure there usually is, which was nice. Next stop was Angel’s Billabong, a natural infinity pool that people are able to swim in (we decided not to because we didn’t want to be wet in the car). A 5 minute walk around the corner from Angel’s Billabong is Broken Beach, a beautiful spot with an arched tunnel that allows water from the ocean to flow in creating a natural pool. There is no way to get down to the beach there because it is surrounded by cliffs, but it makes a great spot to take pictures and enjoy the blue water. Once we finished walking around and taking pictures we headed to a restaurant to grab lunch at a place with all outdoor seating and a fabulous view of the green mountain landscape. The last stop of the day was Crystal Bay Beach, a stretch of beach surrounded by palm trees and green forest with a bunch of stands to buy food. It is apparently a great place to go snorkeling, but we didn’t have any equipment so we laid out on the beach and went swimming in the water. We relaxed here for about 2 hours before getting back in the car and returning to the port to catch a boat back. Nusa Penida has many popular tourist attractions, we did the ones on the West side of the island, we were unable to do the ones on the East side without spending a night on the island. The one thing that we found annoying was that you had to pay to use all the bathrooms (which were usually a pan on the ground you had to squat over) so luckily we had cash on us but they were kind of pricey. As we waited at the port for the boat we got a beautiful view of Bali’s main island across the water. Once we got back to the main island, our driver from the morning was waiting to pick us up and return us to our hostel. We were able to check out of our hostel once we returned and even managed to get refunded for that night which was great. Emma and I decided to get a cab and go to Seminyak, a popular tourist area about an hour drive from Uluwatu. I wasn’t originally planning on going there but things in Uluwatu weren’t as close to each other as I thought and so why not check out another area. Plus Seminyak is close to the airport. The drive there wasn’t too bad and after checking into our hostel we took a walk into town and stopped at a mexican restaurant for dinner. Since it was a long day we decided to call it a night and get some rest for the following day.Read more