March 23--HUGE Joyful Surprise!

Wonder is the heaviest element on the periodic table. Even a tiny fleck of it stops time.  --Diane Ackerman

    We had only one rain shower today. I actually had pool time with sunshine!

    There are now two baby turtles swimming in the Indian Ocean named after my grandsons. 

    Cricket told us to be at the beach at 10:30 am. Yes, sir! We arrived to find a bucket of water with 16 excited baby turtles. When the babies hatch on the beach, they are collected by members of a turtle conservation group and kept for three months to grow, so that they have a better chance of surviving in the ocean. At three months old, they are released. We got to do that!!!!!!!!! Talk about wonder!!!!!!!!!!! 

    We were given wooden bowls to scoop out a turtle, then we took them down to the water. There was a line hooked along the sand just up from the waves which we stood at to release the little ones. We were told to name them and give them a blessing. I released two, each one named after a grandson, with the blessing of "live long and prosper." I was in tears the whole time, it was so cool. My first release was the one that made it into the ocean first--the winner! These little ones are about 4" long. Even quite a ways out in the water, we could see their tiny heads poking up for air. I told Cricket that it would be extremely hard to top this experience, and he said, "Challenge accepted!" I would also note that the tour company we are here with is a donor to the turtle conservation efforts. 

    Then I enjoyed alternating between being in the pool and reading pool-side. Cricket and Edi brought us Pad Thai for a late lunch, which we enjoyed on our patio. 

    Lanie and I walked over to the convenience store outside our hotel grounds for snacks and drinks, whereupon we managed to cross the very busy street twice without getting killed. Before we went, we learned from our hosts that the signal to stop traffic is a raised arm, and by-golly, it works! 

    We are well set to read, snack, relax, shower, and get a good night's sleep. 

      Leta

Me in the center celebrating my little one's efforts.
Those little black dots are the babies.

March 22--I Wish I Could Take Some of This Rain Home to KS

Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.  --Mary Oliver

    Here's one I didn't expect--playing pickleball in Bali. They play "no rules," so it is a lot of volley practice, never a bad thing. I made it about 45 minutes before the heat/humidity did me in. It was miraculous to have a rain-free morning to play.

    Although Cricket tells me that this is really fine weather for this time of year, I am really struggling with the heat, humidity and torrential rains. I am sitting on our patio, my only movement is my fingers typing, and I am sweating. While sweating is my superpower, I do not like to be doing it every moment I am outside here. This requires huge water consumption, so last night I got up at least six times to use the bathroom, which, trust me, does not make for a good night's sleep. 

    Lanie finally let Cricket take her to the doctor where she was diagnosed with bronchitis and given lots of good drugs, so hopefully she will soon be enjoying the heat/humidity/rain with us. 

    Cricket was a sweetheart and retrieved our clean laundry for us. My huge armful came back as a compressed little bundle. It will be lovely to have clean clothes as I am sweating through them quite quickly. 

    Every time I have felt motivated to take pictures of our lovely resort, it has been pouring rain. Our Aussie/NZ tour spoiled us with only one rainy morning in almost four weeks. 

    I did get in the pool right outside our door during a break in the rain earlier. My body is missing swimming terribly. I was chased inside by rain--the wind causes some sort of quarter-sized nuts to come shooting down from the trees like hail, so one does not dawdle in a downpour. 

    Early on, Cricket told us about his being in the hospital for six days with dengue fever, brought on by mosquito bites. So now I am paranoid about bugs even more than usual. 

    There is much to "get used to" here, and I'm feeling like it is very slow coming for me. 

    Stay tuned...

        Leta

New Zealand road caution sign--
below it is a smaller rectangular sign
that tells the danger, such as
"ROAD WORK AHEAD"

March 21--The Dentist Adventure and Traffic Terror

To be fully seen by somebody, then, and be loved anyhow--this is a human offering that can border on miraculous.  --Elizabeth Gilbert

    Our first full day in Bali... at breakfast we tried new-to-us dragon fruit and snake fruit. I had a made-to-order omelet that was wonderful. 

    Then followed a harrowing ride to the dentist. Traffic is insane here, plus add torrential rain and questionable drainage on top of it. Despite the jokes about me staying in Bali, I could not do it just because of the traffic alone. My dentist appointment was amazing--25 minutes and I had a pain-free filling that cost me just under $50 US. We also got rupiah from an ATM, and hauled our dirty clothes to a laundry service. My huge armload cost me about $6 for wash/dry/fold. We'll pick it up tomorrow. 

    Weary from the non-stop activity of the previous tour, we took the afternoon off to read and relax. I met up later with Cricket by the beach where we had coconut water straight from the coconut, and I had a light salad for supper. Because this spot is so close to the equator, sunrise and sunset are almost exactly 12 hours apart, currently around 6:30 am and pm. Early darkness suits me just fine. 

    We were warned immediately not to drink the water here--bottled water only. Even the "natives" don't drink it. It smells kind of nasty, too. This is truly a case of "water water everywhere but not a drop to drink." 

    Cricket is staying at the hotel with us, but today he took us by the house he rents here. It is a two-bedroom, two-bath place with a pool that is a mansion in this area. His Balinese friends consider him "filthy rich," but he's very middle-class by American standards. Just down the way from his place is a huge pile of trash. Living conditions here are dreadful for the average Balinese worker, whom Cricket says makes an average of $300 per month. There is no such thing as our Social Security. 

    Feeling extraordinarily blessed,

        Leta    

Cricket and coconuts!

March 20--In Bali

The world changes when we change. The world softens when we soften. The world loves us when we choose to love the world.  --Marianne Williamson

    We flew yesterday (Mar 20 over here) from Queenstown, NZ to Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia. It was about ten hours total flying time. This completed 13 of the 16 total flights of this trip. We sailed through immigration and customs much more easily than we were led to believe possible. My friend Cricket, who moved here several years ago from Chicago, and is our tour leader, picked us up with a couple friends. It was raining buckets, which they say is "nothing." It was also dark, so we couldn't see much. The drive to the hotel was exciting with scooters weaving in and out of traffic through the rain. Cricket labeled it "organized chaos." Our hotel and grounds are beautiful, even in the dark. We are on the beach, but we didn't see it last night.

    After a very long day, made longer by a 5-hour time change (I can no longer keep track of my jet lag), it was a joy to climb into bed and go to sleep to rainfall. 

    Leta

The last goofy picture Wayne took:
Kathy, me, Lanie, Kathy, me, Lanie

March 19, Part 2--Last Day of the Australia/NZ Tour

If you are in love--that's a good thing--that's about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don't let anyone make it small or light to you.  --John Steinbeck 

    We slept in on our last day, a glorious treat. After breakfast, we made the trek downhill to town (after getting the full scoop on the bus that would bring us back up the long, steep hill). We walked along the lakefront, then headed back uphill to ride the Skyline Queenstown gondola. I was not all that terrified--it was a lovely ride up with a worker who told us about the other things we could do--ride the luge, mountain biking (the trail is insane), bunge-jumping or even para-gliding. And here I was proud of myself for doing the gondola! Truly NZ is a thrill-seeker's (do stupid, dangerous stuff) paradise. 

Note the bike inside the gondola

Note the parasail in the background between us--
we saw many taking off

Awesome views!

    On the way to the gondola, we passed an indoor skydiving place. Despite the lovely offer, we passed:

    Riding the gondola back down gave us a clear view of how steep it is! We roamed through some shops and enjoyed another Pad Thai lunch. A bit more wandering led us to the last pub visit of this tour, where we capped off our good lunch with a beer. Then we rode the bus back up the hill--we agreed that we would have paid a much greater fare just to avoid that uphill hike. 

    After some much-appreciated downtime, we joined the group for our "Last Supper." It was a lovely meal but much too loud and long. We had a group photo afterwards. Hopefully our guide will post it on the group photo site eventually. 

    Words to live by:

    Tomorrow we fly to Bali!!!!

        Leta

March 19--Mr. Robertson

    This is in appreciation of our guide Wayne. Lanie and I have been on several Collette tours, and he is far and away the best guide we have had on any tour. 

    Wayne gave us the phrase "rattle your dags." Dags are the dried pooplets at the back end of a sheep that rattle when they run. Although I must confess that I have seen literally thousands of sheep on this trip, I have rarely seen any running. Anyway, "rattle your dags" means to hurry up, and I shall think of Wayne every time I use it. You can google it--this one is true.

    Wayne enjoyed pulling out legs. Here's one of the better ones. You can see paths worn into the hillsides where cattle and sheep meander (few pioneers there). Wayne tells us that since they always walk clockwise (?), genetically over time their right legs have become shorter than their left. When an earthquake hits (often here), they get disoriented and turn around. Because their right legs are shorter, they roll down the hill. This is a stock avalanche. 

    Wayne also told us to be on the lookout in Australia for shamels--a cross between a sheep and a camel. Let your mind wander on that for a bit!

    Wayne has an outstanding ability to share history, geography, geology and "Local Culture." He has been especially good at helping us learn the indigenous Maori culture. 

    He has kept us laughing with his great sense of humor. He has been a tour guide for 26 years and is still ultra-enthusiastic about sharing his countries with tourists. Even sleep-deprived, he is fun, maybe even more so. He kindly took several of us, including me, to the medical center as the crud made its way through the group. 

    Somehow he was able to keep us all on time for nearly four weeks of adventure. 

    Wayne truly made this trip through Australia and New Zealand spectacular.    

    Thanks, Wayne!

        Leta

March 18--Waterfall Day

Like all magnificent things, it's very simple.  --Natalie Babbitt

    Another early start took us over the mountains to Milford Sound, which is a fjord, not a sound. We learned that a fjord is created by glaciers and a sound by a river. It seems that for every waterfall we saw, there was an even more awesome one around the next bend. We did a deep-woods walk at The Chasm, where there were many smaller falls coming off of a good size stream:

    I learned a lot about avalanches. Our bus driver, Andrew, said that the road we used is often closed in winter due to avalanches. This confused me since the mountains are not near the road. What closes the road is the amount of debris that the snow pulls down with it, plus the avalanche creates incredibly dangerous high winds. 

    We started the morning in rain and heavy clouds, but by the time we reached Milford Sound it had cleared, and we were quite lucky to be able to see the top of Mitre Peak, highest on the South Island:

    We cruised for two hours on the fjord, enjoying the sunshine and amazing scenery. Waterfalls ranged from pencil-thin so that you could barely see water moving to the big gushers:

    It was a long bus ride back to Queenstown. We don't have to get on a bus again for almost 22 hours! We can sleep in!

        Leta