Dancing with the Dolphins - Lovina BALI

For some reason the world has always portrayed dolphins as this magical creature that frolics through the ocean being majestic and squeaking in their language that we are so desperately trying to de-code.

Children dream about them, adults have them permanently tattooed to their bodies and there are teams of people who stand in the busy streets and fight for their very existence but quite frankly I never saw what the big deal was.

My mother on the other hand is obsessed with them. She screams bloody murder when they swim through the passage that we can see from our balcony and when I run to her side I am usually disappointed when she tells me it’s just dolphins and not an intruder looking for our non-existent diamonds.

So on our second trip back to Bali I was sure that by traveling with both my mother and grandmother, dolphins would definitely feature in our travels. I did not expect to be traveling across the spine of Bali in order to see them.

We had a beautiful 6 hour drive from Kuta Beach to a small town in the very north of Bali called Lovina. I am definitely a road trip person so I enjoyed the blaring music and the tropical sceneries as we wound around the country side. My mother on the other hand did not enjoy seeing her lunch for the second time.

The weather was beautiful and the signs along the way were stunning. There is something about driving through the country that I find really therapeutic. It was so easy to lose track of the hours passing by staring out at the endless rice fields and dense forests that inhabit monkeys and birds and maybe even elephants although that hope might be a bit steep.

I was glad to finally have pulled into our hotel and basically slipped into a mini coma as soon as my head hit the pillow and it was just as well because the next morning would be an early one. I am not so much a morning person so it took me a solid hour of waking up and about 4 coffees before I felt I was awake enough to safely sit in a boat without dozing off and falling over board.

We met our tour guide who was a local resident of Lovina and his name was, get this, Dolphin. I’m sure that’s not what was scribed on his birth certificate but he insisted we call him dolphin, so we did. He took us out on a beautiful wooden canoe that he explained to us was carved out of a thick tree trunk and I could easily see the hard labour and work someone had once put into this almost sculpture. The paint flaking away and the small areas of splintered wood was only and indication to the life of the canoe well lived.

We did see dolphins in the oceans but seeing as every other tourist in Lovina had the same idea that morning it there was a large congregation of canoes on the water so it was hard to get close enough to the dolphins without ourselves or others scaring them away.

When we got back and had pulled up and parked the boat on the sand I jumped out and brushed my hands together as if to say ‘Job done.’ We had seen dolphins, (not our tour guide) and they had been in the wild and I thought that this experience was enough to fulfil both my mother and nana’s dolphin needs for the trip but no… it wasn’t.

The next day we, and by ‘we’ I mean my nana and mum had planned a trip to this really cool place which I could only describe as half hotel half zoo. It was a hotel down the road from us that had bird aviaries, snakes, monkeys in enclosures, the best lizard I have ever seen and you guessed it… dolphins.

This hotel stood out from all the other not only because it was a safari park but because you could pay to swim with the dolphins. And I’m not talking about like paying to feed a dolphin and pat in from the side of the pool and maybe if your lucky you can get a fishy kiss from the dolphin and a cute photo to take home to your friends, but I am talking about a giant pool that you could bomb dive in and in return be shoved around by some dolphins.

My mum and nana jumped at the opportunity but seeing as my sister and I weren’t fussed we decided to not pay the ticket price and have lunch together in the hotel instead. I even walked around the pools when a man asked me if I wanted to swim with the sharks instead and because I am an adrenalin junky I almost screamed ‘Yes!’ back at him and I don’t think he was expecting that kind of response because he paused, looked around and said ‘Well you can’t, but you can feed them.’ Which I thought was equally as cool so I did. It was a rock pool type thing with a million baby sharks that looked cute enough to cuddle and I grabbed a fish head and chucked it into the water. For a second none of the sharks ate it and I wondered why until a 2 metre long shark just glided over the others and slurped up the fish head. ‘That one’s name is King’ the man said, and I laughed. ‘No one eats before him.’ I laughed again.

When my mum and nana had finished with their swim neither of them could A) string a sentence together which B) not shutting up about it rather annoying. They raved and raved and my nana really pushed the experience on me so I threw caution to the wind and said I would do it and let me tell you it was one of the best experiences I have ever had.

Dolphins are in that group of animal that are so gentle but still have that element of risk to do great damage like elephants and horses and other things that scare me so getting into the pool I was a little apprehensive about my safety and whether or not that man dressed as a lifeguard was actually qualified to save my life in case of an emergency.

It was so cool to be pushed around by these creatures and just have fun with them. They swim around while you hold onto their fins and they push you along with their noses under your feet and I even danced with one of them. It was such cool experience that I can’t quite explain the emotion behind it but it really made me marvel at the animal kingdom and the sheer intelligence of these animals.  The only thing I was worried about was the thought that they are still wild animals and are really strong and could hurt me if they really wanted to but the more relaxed I was the more they reassured me of their playfulness.

Even though I was feeling a bit apprehensive about the whole thing I really enjoyed it and completely 100% encourage both going out on a boat to see wild dolphins and visiting this hotel. I am pretty sure most of the money they raise goes back into the care and feeding of the animals and it was a really powerful experience that I personally went through.

Along with the dolphin hotel there are heaps of things to do in Lovina and it’s worth the trip north to get away from the hustle and bustle of Kuta Beach if you are looking for some quiet time to kick back.

Hotel Info: http://www.melkahotelbali.com/