Blimbingsari, Barat and Baluran #HogsAbroad in Bali

Almost caught up… Almost.

Looking over the top of a waterfall

Blimbingsari was our second home stay; the village was very interesting. The main industry is tourism and the main product, homestays. The village runs the only homestay in the area with a network of over twenty houses and room for over 100 people. They function as a business- with add-ons groups can purchase, tour packages and the like.

The money stays completely local- there are no restaurants so the locals take turns cooking, there are no hotels so people who have additional rooms rent them out. The village is considered one of the most sustainable developments for village-based tourism in Indonesia. The coolest thing, though, was definitely the plastic bank.

It’s another local initiative- the community organizes the curb side pick up for plastic recycling. They somehow manage to keep it separated by family and the refund value for each bottle is placed in a bank account for that family- which they can withdraw once a year. I think that this is such a good way to help clean up the village and to show just how much the refunds add up to- and how much plastic we all use. The second coolest part of Blimbingsari was it’s proximity to Barat National Park. My homestay coordinator was also the local trekking guide- each morning we all went on a nature trek looking for local species and finding some great places.

Where the monsoon forests meets the savanna

After Blimingsari we went to Baluran National Park in Java. We had to take a ferry between the islands and then drive into the park a good distance.

The differences in was really cool. The park starts out as monsoon forest, then deciduous forest, which leads into the savanna area and finally, at the coast there are mangrove forests.

The macaques (monkeys) are everywhere. And super aggressive since they are used to people feeding them. They stole some of our luggage as we were unloading it.

I also had to defend a watermelon at one point- fruit was scarce, since it was a national holiday and the shops were closed, and I was not about to let them have our dinner. The other animals were cooler- bantang, black monkeys, kingfishers, civets and even a wild dog!

Ferry crossing!

Sadly, we got kicked out early due to the accommodation being overbooked and we were scrambling to leave, catch the ferry across to Bali, drive across all of Bali to take the ferry to a different island in the east…
Which really deserves its own section. So that’s where I will end today. Hopefully, I will get the next one up this week, as well. Ta
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Claire Beach will be traveling to several countries during her International Service Learning Program this summer. Her ultimate destination will be a seven-week stay in Indonesia where she will be observing and conducting research for her project, Community Nature and Conservation, through the Honors College.

Beach is studying economics and international business in Walton College. She is observing and conducting research on the profitability of ecotourism business and environmental preservation in other parts of the globe, particularly developing countries. She will be attending the School of International Training. You can read more from Claire at hogtrailsandtales.wordpress.com.

Find out more about the SIT Indonesia: Community Nature Conservation in Bali (Summer) program at http://studyabroad.sit.edu/programs/summer/summer-2016/abe/