Surfing 🏄‍♀️ and Elephants 🐘

Today was a great day! We started out our morning with an early wake up call to walk down to the beach for surfing lessons at 7am. Mom and Dad were a little concerned but were excited to try their “semi-private” lesson together (they shared one guide and Emily and Maddy each had their own). Our main guide Dewa met us and gave us some instructions on land before hitting the water. It was so much fun. The waves were a good height for beginners and gave us ample time to try to stand up. It took a little while, but Maddy and Emily figured it out and were able to stand up! This was also Emily’s second surfing lesson, so she is almost intermediate already. Mom and Dad enjoyed catching the waves, but struggled to stand up. Mom preferred to surf on her knees, however, she did get up on one of her last waves!

It was a great learning experience and excellent way to start our last day in Bali. We also got to see lots of skydivers fall out of the sky and land on the beach! After we finished our two hour lesson, we walked home, changed and grabbed breakfast at a little Greek place before meeting Gede to head to the Bali zoo. Traffic is still horrible in Seminyak, so it took over an hour to go the 10 miles.

Once we made it to the zoo, we headed straight to the orangutans and elephants. They were having “open-range” orangutans for an hour so we were able to see Septi (female orangutan born in September) swing over and eat some food. It was so cool to be that close to her and watch her interact with people. After our time with Septi we saw some other animals, like monkeys, crocodiles, ostriches, sunbears, and tigers. Then we were able to feed an elephant. We all got our baskets of carrots, bananas, sweet potatoes and cucumbers and headed down to meet Hati. Hati is a 27 year old elephant who likes to eat fast. It was so cool to feel her trunk and skin and watch her consume all this food.

Once Hati was done eating, we finished out the loop of animals at the zoo and went by the lions. We were also able to feed the male lion Deo! He a little scary and a little too close for comfort, but interacting with him that close by was pretty breathtaking (in a good way). We finally made it out and found Gede to head back to Seminyak.

We ended the night with another lovely dinner on the beach watching the sunset and headed home to pack up and catch our flight to Cairns tomorrow!Read more