Day Three, Wednesday, March 18
This morning, after the newly established daily regimen of early morning teaching followed by breakfast, you gather your bags and check out of the hotel. Your ultimate destination today is the artistic and cultural capital of Bali, Ubud. Located in the lower highlands in the central region of Bali, Ubud is cooler and sometimes wetter than the coast.

On the way to Ubud, you quickly leave behind the hustle and bustle of the over built, highly commercial tourist areas of the south to find yourself traveling through the lush rice fields, verdant rain forests and magnificent volcanoes of the Balinese countryside. It’s an amazing, magical contrast. It’s almost like stepping back into an earlier, simpler, more tranquil era where daily life unfolds in a gentle, natural rhythm.

Traveling north, you arrive for lunch overlooking the spectacular and astonishingly beautiful rice terraces of Jatiluhwih. The extensive and uniquely terraced sawah (rice fields) of Jatiluwih were nominated as a UNESCO Cultural World Heritage site. The rice terraces of Jatiluwih are a wonderful example of the ability of humans to live in harmony with nature in a sustainable way.

After lunch and a further drive to Ubud, you check into the historic Tjampuhan Hotel and Spa. Designed in the uniquely Balinese style, the hotel blends into the serene beauty of its natural setting, a verdant hillside overlooking the Oos river. The hotel is the site of the home of the famous artist, Walter Spies. In the 1930’s Spies was instrumental in establishing both Bali’s modern art scene and its profile as an international tourist destination in the mid-twentieth century.

After settling in to your hotel, you have a final adventure organized for the day. A short walk from the hotel is an historic bridge that overlooks the confluence of the Oos and Campuhan rivers. Below the main bridge, a smaller foot bridge takes you across the Campuhan river to a small but important temple that overlooks and blesses the joining of the waters. From the temple there is foot path that follows the crest of the ridge created by the land dropping away into the deep ravines formed by the two rivers, This delightful hour long hike is known as the Campuhan Ridge Walk. You join your comrades around 5:15 to enjoy the hike just before sunset.
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