Banyan Bike Tour and more Yoga!

Up early yesterday to be picked up at 7.30 am for my Banyan Tree Bike Tour.  There are lots of bike tours available in Bali and so it's a bit hard to pick which would be the best one, so I did a bit of reading around and ended up choosing this one as it was rated highly on Trip Adviser and also because there looked to be a lot of cycling through more remote parts - e.g. rice fields etc.  The tour cost 450000 rupiah (£27) and included both breakfast and lunch as well as bike hire, water during the ride, snacks during the ride, guides and transfers.  I was impressed that within less than half a day of enquiring about the trip, the owner had emailed me back with the details and confirming my booking.

I was picked up from my hotel by a guy called Nomad, we then picked up 2 Austrian ladies (who say in Bali they are from Europe so as to not be confused with the many Australian tourists!) called Regina and Petina.  They were friendly and we chatted until stopping at the bridge where in Eat Pray Love Julia Roberts is knocked off her bike by her male love interest!  I didn't take the opportunity to take a photo as I didn't really think it necessary - it was a nice enough bridge though.  We joined up with 4 chatty and very nice Americans from Colorado - 2 couples Marsha and Ali and Kim and Bill.  We drove a little further and stopped at a restaurant for our breakfast which had a fantastic view over the rice fields.  

I had coffee, a fresh pineapple juice and a vegetable omelette for breakfast to set me up for a day of cycling.  It was all very tasty.  I sat with the Americans who were very friendly, Marsha and     Ali had previously lived in Jakarta for 20 years as Ali who is originally from Iran worked for the World bank previously.  Kim and Bill who is a dentist had previously lived in Saudi Arabia for many years too and so they were very comfortable with travel and temperature!  Ali was hilarious, very dead pan comical and with an accent not dissimilar to Joe Mantegna.  We got back in the mini bus and were dropped off to pick up our bikes.  Here I am looking very cool in a helmet with my bike (note the long sleeved shirt...)

I deliberately didn't opt for the "extreme biking tour" as whilst I'm ok on a bike, I didn't fancy my chances in Balinese heat and I was pleased with the pace of the tour - some of the group were in their 60s and so occasionally we had to wait for them, but it was in general a comfortable pace.  

We headed off onto a path through some rice fields which looked lovely, but it became fairly challenging as there were small drops off either side of a very narrow (a little wider than the bike tyres) path.  I had to really concentrate so that I didn't fall off my bike.  Unfortunately I think that I was possibly the only one person in the group who didn't fall off - no-one injured themselves bar a couple of scrapes and bruises, but everyone enjoyed it and was in good spirits.  The most spectacular fall happened right in front of me.  Regina was peddling past a completely naked Balinese guy in one of the rice fields who was using the irrigation system for the rice to have a bath (initially standing up until he saw us and sat in the water).  I don't know whether it was the distraction of the naked man, the very narrow path or both, but she wobbled over and fell into the stream in front of the naked guy getting covered in mud in the process!  I don't know who was more shocked - her or the man!

We cycled into a traditional Balinese compound house with a lady sat feeding her 8 month old grandchild by chewing up rice and feeding it to him.  You can also see our guide and also Regina with a muddy t-shirt in this photo.

We continued along and cycled up a really big hill (well I say cycled, I got so far and then just rolled to a stop, so I got up and pushed my bike the rest of the way.  We were rewarded at the top with a lovely slice of watermelon - Ali liked it so much that he bought one and put it in the mini bus to carry that had been following us around.  By this point he'd fallen off the bike a total of 5 times!

We cycled through a load more rice fields (fortunately this time with slightly wider and more solid paths) and then over a dam before stopping for a banana snack and then carrying our bikes up a steep slope before getting back in the mini bus to take us to the Bike Tour owner's house for a traditional Balinese lunch.

Just before we got in the minibus again to head off for lunch - Gdang our guide, found a nice spider to show us.  "Is it poisonous " I asked before taking a photo "I don't know" he said and then put it on his face and took it with us on the ride to lunch.

(I've just googled "big spider Bali" to see if it is poisonous or not and the 6th image that comes up is also from Banyan Bike Tours!)   Apparently it is "somewhat" poisonous!

We then had a lovely lunch at Bagi's house (owner of Banyan Tree Bike Tours) which was some of the best satay and curried fish that I've ever tasted along with noodles, rice and vegetables.  The best bit was the dessert - some lovely rice pancakes wrapped in banana leaf and a stripey rice cake.

We said goodbye to the Americans (who I'm pleased to say have already registered their postal votes for Obama in advance of the election as they are still going to be in Bali on the 6th) and then we went back via a coffee plantation.

At the coffee plantation we saw lots of interesting plants - Cinnamon, cocoa, pineapples, vanilla as well as both Arabica and Balinese coffee.  We also saw a couple of Mongoose (Mongeese??) who are used to make a very expensive version of coffee - Kopi Luwak or Civet Coffee.  They basically eat the coffee beans, they pass through their digestive system and the beans are roasted and prepared to make a very expensive coffee.

The Austrian ladies had mentioned that they were interested in going to a Yoga class so I suggested that they try out The Yoga Barn as at 6 pm they were doing their Community Yoga class which is free.  I got back to the room despaired at my sun burn - (even Factor 50 can't survive loads of sweat!) and had a nap before wandering down to the Yoga Barn again.

This class was probably a lot more similar to the Yoga that I do back at home.  At home I take a class at my gym in Ashtanga yoga and this was the theme of the class that was taught by a lovely guy called Mark.  At the start of the class he had a brief discussion around yoga and then he gave us some insect repellent.  The class was very warm and lots of poses and vinyasa flow.  At the end he made us do the "Happy Baby" pose - lying on your back with your legs in the air holding your feet - some people laughed and he very positively said that it was a good thing and that "You should never regret something that made you laugh" - A pretty good philosophy I think.  I really enjoyed the class, even though I was very hot and sweaty by the end of it  I think that the Austrians enjoyed it too - highly recommend the Yoga Barn!

I headed back to my room for a well earned shower and change and then went over to Bar Luna to see what was going on and to grab some dinner.   I had a very tasty Kerouac Chicken Sandwich - grilled chicken, very tasty bread with avocado, beetroot and lettuce with mayo spread on the bread and some pesto sauce to go with it.  I also took advantage of BOGOF Mojitos which were also very tasty.

Yoga and Tension Release Massage

I think that I'm still a bit jetlagged as I was up until past 2 am this morning again, so when the alarm went for breakfast it was all a bit startling!  

I had decided yesterday that I was going to go to Yoga today as the only exercise I've done all holiday other than this is to walk around in the hot weather slowly and throw Maya (12kg) around in a swimming pool.  So after breakfast I got into my yoga gear and walked down to Yoga Barn with plenty of time to spare.  I wasn't 100% sure whether I needed to book or not, so I just showed up and it was all totally fine. The Yoga Studio is based down a few steps past the cafe and is in really lovely surroundings - there were even a couple of very relaxed looking cats.  All the facilities were lovely - showers, toilets were clean and fresh and the staff were all extremely helpful and polite.

The class itself was lovely.  You walk upstairs to the studio which has a covered roof, but open sides to lovely views of the jungle.  Some of the reviews on tripadvisor mentioned that there was some building work going on which was distracting and this is true, but genuinely I didn't notice any noise (including the school nearby) about 5 minutes into the class.  I went to the Intro to Yoga class which was taught by Eva.  I've got about 6 years yoga experience from going in the UK, but I've not been for a while and so I thought it best to go for an intro class initially.  It was an hour and a half long and whilst wasn't massively challenging in terms of postures based on what I've done previously, it really was a good introduction to Yoga for people who are new to it and there was plenty of space so you didn't feel squashed up next to strangers.  The equipment is great too - loads of very good quality yoga mats, cushions, blankets, straps and blocks.  Eva was an engaging and warm instructor, she kept the pace of the class at a good level for everyone and included a great warm up and a lovely ending section with relaxation.  I will be back tomorrow hopefully for the community yoga free session and hope to squeeze in another before I leave on Tuesday.

I headed back to my hotel briefly for a change and shower and then went to go and complete my relaxation day with a lovely massage at Sang Spa.  I opted for this spa as they were rated well on Trip Adviser and also didn't have loads of people trying to entice me in with leaflets.  I opted for the 45 minute tension release massage: 

Let our therapist melt all tension away with a 45 minute deep pressure massage on your back, neck shoulder, and your hands. A totally pampering and revamping back indulgence.

Again I hope to be back as it was 45 minutes of antidote to sitting at a PC all day every day for 12 hours plus.  I didn't fall asleep, but at one point I think I was in an almost hypnotic trance.  It was very good.  And all for 100000 rupiah - or £6!

I wandered down to get some lunch from Juice Ja which included a very cleansing juice and a lovely Americano coffee and then Nasi Campur for lunch.  I wrote 6 postcards - which seems silly after the amount of blogging that I've done, but it's still nice to receive a postcard through the mail when all you normally get are offers on broadband or credit cards or if you are lucky a cash for gold envelope!  Now all that I need to do is work out how to post them!  I saw this in the toilets at Juice Ja and it reminded me that I liked it and Dr Seuss was a wise man.

I emailed the batik people yesterday, but hadn't heard back so walked down to the place which was near Juice Ja and eventually stumbled into a shop who told me to go through past some houses and I spoke to a 10 year old boy who translated for him mum and got me to book in by writing my name in a book, it does look good though so I'm booked onto do Batik class on Saturday and will watch the fire dance either on the same day or on Sunday evening.

I walked back and popped into a couple of shops as I really am not well equipped with suitable clothes for Ubud and bought a lightweight dress for c£22 and a green t-shirt with a cat print on it.  The woman tried to con me when I was buying the t shirt by only giving me 5000 rupiah change when it was 50000 due!  I managed to get the right change back though!

Rachel came over at about 6.30pm when I was skyping Coddy who then showed Rachel (and Kiran) Pocky and Marla.  (We took Pocky to live with us when Rach went "travelling" in 2008 - I guess she's ours now! Mwahahah)  We walked down to Bali Buddha which was a big effort for Rach as it was about 20 mins walk and she'd forgotten that she'd left the baby carrier for Kiran at home!       We managed to get there ok and had some tasty juice (mine was Orange, Pineapple, Carrot and Basil) and I ordered Bakso and a curry as I didn't realise quite how big the portions would be and quite how much my appetite has reduced.  Kiran slept all the way through dinner so we had plenty of time to chat and catch up.

So I'm now catch up with my blog in Arts Kafe again, but will need to be early to bed as "Bagi" is picking me up at 7am for my Bali Bike tour - a bit scared of just how hot I'm going to get, will be coating myself in sun cream to avoid massive burns!

Day tripping, temples, photo opportunities and tourist prices!

So again another blog entry to first be written out on WordPad as the internets aren't quite working at XL Shisha Lounge - I can log on with my Iphone and Blackberry, but not the Netbook - weird!

So today I didn't nap - hooray!  Probably a good idea too as I couldn't sleep until 2.30 am last night and ended up watching Horrible Bosses which was...erm...horrible really.  It lacked any particularly interesting twists, and likable characters and probably the only redeeming feature was realising that Colin Farrell had been playing a particularly despicable character and looked nothing like his normal attractive self.

Breakfast was a Jaffle - basically a banana and honey toasted sandwich with fruit salad again.  Rachel, Made and Kiran came and picked me up at 9 am and Made was our driver for the day.  We went up towards Kintamani and found that a lot of tourist viewpoint places are now charging tourists just to drive past!  We first of all took the opportunity to take pictures of the lovely rice terraces which really are beautiful.

We then stopped so Rachel could grab some breakfast whilst we enjoyed the view over Mount Batur  What I particularly enjoyed was that you could see a piece of green forest surrounded by black ash from when the last eruption had occurred and wiped out the vegetation around it.  

Tourist prices are very different - we paid nearly £2 each for a very basic coffee and Rachel had a banana pancake for about £2.50 - in Ubud this would cost around half this.  Made however as our "driver" went into a special room and got buffet breakfast for free for bringing us there!

We stopped off on the way to buy some fruit from a really pretty fruit stall.  Rachel let Made do the negotiation to get a better price and bought some mangosteens - which look like tiny aubergines, but when peeled reveal something that looks almost like a peeled bulb of garlic and tastes a bit like Mango.  I really like them.  I also got to try something that looked a bit like a date on the outside, but almost like a passion fruit on the inside and tasted like plum.  Neither Made or Rachel knew what it was called!  A very sweet little girl was also trying to sell us a basket in between hiding behind the fruit.

Made then drove us to the Holy Water temple - Tirta Empul - Tampak Siring Temple and I put on the sarong that I'd brought with me from home that I'd worn to Rachel's wedding in 2009 and Rachel lent me a sash.  The temple was really beautiful and the water comes from a volcanic spring and you can see the water bubbling up through the bottom of one of the very clear pools.   There are several springs which you get into and pray at each spring before moving onto the next.  You can get right in, but even though I had a change of clothes it did seem like it would be a bit of a hassle, so I opted for dipping my hand in and splashing water on my face.  We got accosted around the temple by some excitable Malaysian ladies who were desperate to have their photo taken with us...or rather Kiran!  On the way out it was quite sad as you have to walk through an area of shops and there are loads!  Rachel could hear that they were shouting out prices to the Indonesian tourists in front of us of 5000 rupiah (c35p) and then "one dollar" to us!  Rachel bought a nice hat for Maya to make up for her staying at home.  I felt almost guilty for not buying anything as everyone was trying very hard and they had obviously spent time in building up their wares for sale.

We then to grab some lunch at a place that one of Made's friends had recommended and said did some Thai food.  It didn't do Thai food and whilst I had a good set meal with a soup starter, Nasi Campur main and banana fritters with ice cream and gorgeous caramel sauce, it was pretty expensive - 165000 rupiah and Rachel was very disappointed with her soup that was tiny and 35000.  Madea again went to the "drivers" area and probably had a much better feed than we did!  I did like my main course and my dessert was particularly tasty!

We then went back to the house and I got to see Rachel's office and the new kitchen.   I didn't get to meet her cat Queenie though which was sad as she's been missing for a few days - but she did come back tonight hooray!  Rachel then dug out the wedding video which I'd not seen and was interesting.  It brought back lots of memories from the first time that I visited including Coddy's awful Abe Lincoln style beard and me before contact lenses!   

Rachel put Kiran in the Halloween pumpkin sleepsuit that I'd bought for him and we took some lovely posed photos of him next to a pumpkin that she'd picked up earlier on our trip.

Made then dropped me off at my hotel and I got a well needed shower before working out that I can Skype Coddy from an app on my IPhone - he showed me the cats and I showed him around my hotel room and I decided on my next venue for dinner - XL Shisha Lounge.  A trip adviser review complimented it on having "lots of Pillows" what more could I want!

I have also planned out a bit more what I'm doing for the next 5 days I'm here (can't believe that it's going so fast!  Tomorrow I'm going to do a Yoga class at The Yoga Barn - I'm going for the beginners class as I don't trust myself to know what I'm doing otherwise even though I've been doing yoga for about 6 years!  The class will be 110000 rupiah - about £6/7.  I'm then going to have a massage somewhere good.  

Then I hope to go to the Kecak fire dancing display at 7.30pm.  On Friday I will be doing a bike tour Banyan Tree Bike Tours - which I'm a bit worried about as I sweat so horribly here just walking around that I'm going to be soaking wet by doing any physical exertion!  Hopefully it will be ok - Rachel reckons it should be mostly downhill.  

Then I'm trying to get booked onto a Batik class - from I Nyoman Suradnya - hopefully Rachel will let me pay for her to come too as a thank you for being my personalised tour guide/chaperone. I am then keen to go back to Tjampuan with Rachel for a spa day - maybe we could fit it in on the same day as Batik?  Other than that what else do I want to do?  More shopping, maybe a day at the beach?  So much to fit in and so little time left!  I might just have to come back again very soon!

2 lazy days

Ok, so I didn't post yesterday and it's largely because a post where the total of the days activities can be summarised as follows:

Woke up + ate breakfast (banana pancakes) + went back to my room to read more of "The Hunger Games" + fell asleep + woken up by Rachel, Maya and Kiran at past 3 pm to go swimming wouldn't be a massively interesting entry!

Swimming was fun though - I was supervising a very adventurous and fearless Maya who was determined to push my five foot three and a half inches stature to the limit when throwing herself into the deep end!  Even when she managed to jump in the shallow end by herself when we weren't looking for a split second and her head went under the water she didn't seem to care! After swimming we got changed and then Made picked up Maya on his scooter and Rach, Kiran and me went to grab some dinner at Devilicious.  Kiran did a bit of sleeping, but then woke up and got very excited again, especially when we went back to the hotel room!  I had a yummy Laksa curry and Rach had a burger!  Western food becomes a novelty when you eat Indonesian food as standard.

After Made had picked up Rach and Kiran I headed out to pick up some Wifi and grab a Bintang at Arts Cafe and look over emails and Facebook.  It was reasonably busy and friendly and there was a live band who were ok at playing covers, my only grip was that they played "Imagine" when they had a request to play The Beatles!

This morning I got up again and had breakfast (vegetarian omelette) and then headed back to  my room to finish "The Hunger Games" which I did, eventually, but my mistake was reading whilst lying down and so I ended up having another nap until about 2pm (let's blame the jet lag finally catching up on me perhaps?)  I was planning on a massage, but Rach had messaged to say they'd pick me up about 4.30pm, and I had left it too late and there is nothing worse than trying to rush relaxation!  So I wandered along the lower end of Monkey Forest Road and had my first successful attempt at haggling and bought a much needed fan for 40000 rupiah, down from 55000 (only saving about £1, but at least I felt I was doing the right thing!)  

I then bought a red vest top for 75000 which was already on sale (about £4.50) as I've realised that whilst I have bought lots of clothes with me,there is a distinct lack of tops!  Grabbed some lunch (only 32000 rupiah for iced tea, Nasi Goreng and fruit plate - about £1.92!) and then Made, Rachel, Maya and Kiran picked me up outside the hotel at 4.30pm to meet up with their friend Stephanie and be able to take some photos in the sunset light for THE SLING DIARIES.  The blog entry is here if you would like to take a look Sling Diaries.  

It was a bit of an ordeal to get there as one of the roads we wanted to take was closed, so we doubled back on ourselves back into Ubud, and then got to the other side of where it was closed and realised it wasn't the road we wanted it!  It was a race to get the photos before the light went!  At least we didn't end up like this truck that fell into the rice field (it did get out again)!

Fortunately we managed to pick up Stephanie in time, get to a pretty rice field and take some lovely pictures of Rachel with Kiran in the sling.

We then went for a lovely chilled meal at a Warung and I had very tasty (and quite spicy!) fish.  Maya and Kiran used the opportunity to dance with their Dad.

Then we went back to transfer the photos from Stephanie's camera to Rachel's Macbook.  After a few technical hitches we managed, but it gave us a good opportunity to meet her MASSIVE pet rabbit who was lovely.  Kiran and Maya thought so too.

Stephanie has a very useful website for anyone thinking about travelling to Asia here which covers places beyond Bali.

Made then drove us back to Ubud and dropped me off and I'm currently at Bar Luna catching up on Facebook and drinking a Bintang listening to a very good live band called Papyafil .  The leaflet on my table has this to say about them:

Mike (strings/voice), Enti (bass) and Defris (drums and percussion) are Papayafil, a band, like papaya which is easy to digest and a symbol of the tropics bearing an exotic flavour that can be heard in their music.  After several incarnations, one as Cozy Republic and several musiciam changes, Papayafil was recently launched with their current line up of musicians in 2009.  

The band includes the musical influences of each band member: reggae, folk, blues, funk, soul, rock and some spice from traditional and world music.

They really are pretty good.  Here is their Facebook page

Bali Belly and Blanco

So rather annoyingly I'm writing this blog entry first of all on wordpad as I first of all tried the WIFI at the hotel and it wasn't working, so I've then come into 3 Monkeys where I used WIFI a couple of days ago and it doesn't seem to be working - grr tedious!  Especially since I just paid 50000 rupiah for a beer!

So today was a bit different, I got up at a similar time, had breakfast, but my stomach felt a bit odd.  Rach messaged me to say that she had a bit too much work on and so I said that I was fine to amuse myself for the day whilst she got her work done.  Rach suggested the Antonio Blanco museum and gallery which I had regretted not visiting last time we were here, especially as we had to walk past it at least twice a day on the way to and from our hotel Tjampuhan which really was *miles* away! 

So I got back to the room and started to get ready to go out, but stomach just wasn't right, I didn't have painful cramps, but (and I'll spare you the details) the next 4 hours meant that it was very useful to have an en-suite toilet!  I read a load more of "The Hunger Games"  and snuck out to buy some Pocari Sweat (isotonic drink) and coconut milk both of which I know to be good at replacing fluids and salts etc when you are dehydrated.  I also made an educated guess at what a version of Imodium was over here and emailed the photo to Rach to translate (fortunately I was right, although I've not actually needed to take any of them yet thankfully!).  I napped for a bit and then woke up at 2pm and decided that I'd wasted enough of the day and so got up and walked down to the Antonio Blanco museum. 

It's probably only about 15 - 20 minutes walk, but I was just so hot that I was really hot, sweaty and horrible by the time I arrived there.  I paid my entrance fee of 50000 rupiah and then was directed to the restaurant for my complimentary welcome drink which was ice cool and much appreciated.  What I appreciated a whole lot more was the lovely cool towel that the waiter gave me.

I walked around the Blanco museum and he's clearly very odd, very close/friendly to Michael Jackson and obsessed with erotica, but I really enjoyed his art.  Here is one of his Jacko pictures (not my photo as obviously in a gallery photography is not allowed!)

The building in which the gallery was based was beautiful   Lots of very dark colours and gold, it should have looked horrendously tacky, but it was actually really intriguing and appealing.  His artwork was a lot of very detailed oil paintings, but also lots of collage work interspersed with writings and poetry that he had written.   The style (although definitely not the content) reminded me of some of the work that my friend Hayley has done - scrap book style with writing and text mixed with different collages of different media.  I really enjoyed looking at it and hopefully I'll be able to use it to inspire me to do some more creative embroidery.  He also had loads of really ostentatious frames for all the pictures which formed part of the overall impact of each of the pieces.

One of the descriptions attached to one of his paintings that I found both intriguing and deeply disturbing was when he was asked his opinion on the meaning of life and he said that it was the idea of fondling the buttocks of an 18 year old in one hand and a ripe mango in the next - or something like that.**  

**Edit - just found the actual description now that I'm back online and here it is:

Probably, because of the Erotic feeling in his painting, I am compelled to tell a true story that relates to this Mystic-Erotica.I received a letter from an enthusiastic Art collector from London in which he asks: "Antonio, you are rather Philosophic; what have you found to be the meaning of life?" My Answer: "When I am bitting into a ripe succulent Mango in my right hand, and at the same time fondling (with my left hand) the firm buttocks of an 18 year girl…..er…..Model, THAT I have found to be the closest THING to a MEANING FOR LIFE" Frame of red and gold exotic Blanco - design.

I wasn't sure when I went up to the second floor of the gallery whether I should go up onto the roof using the slightly rickety spiral staircase, but I did anyway and the view was fantastic - jungle and rice fields.  

The gardens in which the museum and gallery is set is pretty spectacular too, there are loads of vividly coloured parrots on perches which if you like you can have put on your shoulder.  I didn't really fancy this, but I did take a couple of pictures.  I then ventured into the gift shop via a place where they had a DVD playing depicting a dodgy acting out of Blanco courting his Balinese dancer wife and bought the "Fabulous Blanco" book getting a bit confused by the conversion price again.

 Needless to say that things are generally very cheap in Ubud, but I spent more on this book than probably any other book that I've ever bought before!  It looks good though so hopefully it will be worth it!  The lady in the shop complimented my perfume, but then tried to sell me lots of jewelry designed by Blanco's daughter, she was certainly persistent.  **

**Edit, I'm a bit happier with my purchase as I've just seen this as a description on Amazon: 

Currently unavailable.

We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock.

I then had buyers remorse for about an hour, walked back towards my hotel noticing for the first time a very well disguised Starbucks and then stopped off at Kenko for a pedicure.  It was the first place I ever had a manicure at the age of 29 so I thought that it was appropriate that I should visit the same place for my first ever proper pedicure.  I do think that they were laughing at me as so much dead skin was filed away from my hardworking and runners feet.

I headed back to the hotel for a well earned shower and started to watch The Hangover 2 on my netbook before Rachel came over to head out for dinner.  We went to a Cuban restaurant - Cafe Havana (Rachel, Coddy and I had a fab holiday back in 2007 to Cuba so it was nice to reminisce)  Kiran very helpfully fell asleep and so Rachel managed to eat tapas and drink sangria with one hand.  The tapas was really tasty and it was one of the very few restaurants in Ubud that seems to cater for children as they were able to provide Rachel with a baby chair which was useful until Kiran fell asleep.  I managed to get timings wrong and ordered another jug of Sangria before realising that Made was coming to get Rachel back from my hotel in less than 20 minutes!  I had to drink it pretty quickly which wasn't hard as I was thirsty and it was tasty, but it did feel a bit wrong!  I went back to my room, failed to pick up wifi as I mentioned, I tried again in the breakfast room opposite the pool and again failed, but I was also persuaded to move on as there was swimming in the pool in the dark which was a bit odd and worrying! 

Anyway, photos to follow when the connection speed is better...