Location, location, location

The first thing which strikes the visitor to Jimbaran is that the landscape is totally different from the rest of the island. Jimbaran is located in the “Bukit” (the hill), the peninsula at Bali’s southernmost tip, and has an ecosystem characterized by its lack of surface water so during the dry season the vegetation looks more Mediterranean than tropical. During the raining season, however, the vegetation becomes quite lush as it rains profusely. 

View Jimbaran, Bali in a larger map. 

Zoom in or out to get closer to Cuca real life location!!!!

The Bukit rises to about 200 meters above the sea level and it is ringed on all sides by steep cliffs overlooking white rollers world famous among surfers. To the north it is connected to the rest of Bali by a narrow isthmus, where lies the village of Jimbaran and the broad expanse of the tranquil Jimbaran Bay facing the Indian Ocean.

Since the weather does not allow for wet-rice farming the population looked to the sea for survival. Almost all fishermen in Jimbaran use "jukung" (traditional wooden boats) and fish with gill nets or large round cast nets. The nets are set out in the bay in the late afternoon and the catch is collected early the next morning. 

Everyone in the family helps to take the fish from the nets

Jimbaran went unnoticed by tourists until only a few years ago when world class hotels and resorts realized its extraordinary natural beauty and the unusual tranquility still prevailing in the area. A few months ago we also felt the magic of this place and found the perfect spot to build Cuca...  

Isn't it gorgeous? Just seems to be missing Cuca!

Unity in Diversity

There are few places in the world that offer such cultural variety and geographical complexity as Indonesia. Blessed with a phenomenal array of natural resources and unique cultures, Indonesia has been a magnet for every shade of entrepreneur from the west: determined missionaries, unscrupulous traders, unruly adventurers, artists in search of inspiration… The country has been occupied by Dutch and Japanese armies, surveyed, drilled, dug up and shipped off by foreign mining companies, analyzed and written about by ethnologists and anthropologists and more recently invaded by tourists. Despite this fatal attraction, Indonesia’s thousands of islands remain barely touched. 

Indonesia is the fourth most populated country in the world after China, India and the United States with 237 million people (2010), comprising some 300 ethnic groups who speak an estimated 583 languages and dialects. The glue that binds the people together is the usage of the Bahasa Indonesia, the national language, and Pancasila, the national philosophy, which stresses the doctrine of unity and universal justice for all Indonesians.

Over two thirds of the population resides in Java. By contrast, the province of Papua represents 22% of the total land mass, yet has only 1% of the population. A government transmigration policy resettles people on the less populated islands, and Indonesians have been alerted to the importance of only two children to a family to control the birth explosion.

Indonesia is the biggest Islamic nation in the world, with Muslims forming about 90% of the population. Bali, however, is almost entirely Hindu and everywhere there are Buddhists and Christians. But, strangely enough, there is no official state religion – freedom of thought being guaranteed by the Constitution.

With more than 17,000 islands, nearly 60 percent of forested land and a significant portion of mountainous and volcanic land, Indonesia is endowed with endless wonders in one unforgettable destination. 

Time-lapsing Cuca

As I mentioned before, we have decided to make a documentary to capture the process of creating Cuca. Today we spent the morning deciding the location and procedure to make a time-lapse video of the entire construction. 

Time-lapse is a photography technique whereby a camera takes a sequence of photos with an interval of time between each image. The interval can be anything from less than a second to a day or more. When the images are played back the interval of time is speeded up creating a shorter time. Here you will see a beautiful example of this type of video about my hometown, Salamanca:

There are quite a few factors to take into consideration when planning for this type of video: the length of the project, the speed of each step of the construction, the capacity of the memory card, the battery-life, the height of the building, frames necessary for the whole video, etc. Raymond, our photographer, is assisting us in this project and with him and his team we analyzed the drawings and layout of the restaurant and decided the exact place where we will fix the GoPro camera. We will soon install the pole to house the camera and start the shooting!