A day of silence

What you are about to read is rather shocking, at least for a Western mind that has only recently moved to Bali. Believe it or not, we are right now being held prisoners for the day.

Today we are “celebrating” Nyepi, the Balinese New Year, 1935 in the lunar ‘saka’ (Hindu) calendar. The island started to get ready for this event three days ago, when ‘Melasti’ kept Balinese busy. This cleansing ritual consists of taking all the God statues from the village temples to the rivers or the sea to be bathed and purified by the Neptune of the Balinese Lord, the God Baruna.

Last night was the climax of the preparation for the New Year as an island-wide exorcism ceremony was held at each village main cross road, which is the known meeting place of demons. At sunset we witnessed in shock how villagers paraded their fearsome Ogoh-Ogoh, monsters that symbolize the evil spirits surrounding us. Some of these giants are taken from classical Balinese folklore but all have fangs, bulging eyes and dramatic haircuts. The procession is illuminated by torches and accompanied by Balinese gamelan music.  At the end of the evening everyone starts making as much noise as possible and set fire to the Ogoh-Ogoh in order to get the evil spirits out of their lives or at least drive them insane…

Today, Nyepi day, the airport is completely closed, no travel is allowed, whether by motorized means or by foot, all household electricity is banned and any kind of noise is forbidden. It is a day for introspection and reflection for Balinese families and the most traditional ones even abstain from talking to each other for the whole day. There are no shops or businesses open at all, the only exception being emergency medical services. The only sign of life on the street is the menacing sight of the Pecalang (village police) who patrol the villages in search of wayward locals trying to sneak out but will also firmly escort curious tourists back to their hotel. As you see, a very accomplished production whose only purpose is to ingeniously fool the evil spirits, aroused by the noise last night, into believing that Bali is completely empty so they leave the island.

A true day of silence in which the entire island, populated by over 3 million, quite literally resembles an eerie, post-apocalyptic world with not a soul to be seen, or a voice to be heard. This could only happen in Bali…

Carving Cuca

In this post I am going to share with you the very interesting process of getting some of Cuca items engraved with our logo. The idea was always in our mind but we did not know how difficult it would be to make it happen. After trial and error (you may remember my post about laser engraving) and being painfully stubborn to get it done no matter what, we found someone who specializes in ceramic and stone engraving with a different method: sandblasting. This new supplier, Pak Nyoman, had never worked on wood before but we managed to convince him to give it a try. The first sample was not good (that was one of our black days…) but trying some wild ideas led us to the perfect result.

For those of you interested, this is the detailed process:

Our logo

1. Sandcarving starts by making a sticker with the image to be carved, this time our logo.

Girls placing the stickers in the exact spots

2. The sticker must be placed in the right spot on the “parent material”, in our case wood and stone.

Item protected with tape

3. The whole item must be protected with tape to prevent any blasting damage.

Applying heat on the items

4. To apply heat to get the protective tape and the sticker completely adhered to the parent material.


5. A worker takes the item to a blast cabinet where he propels an abrasive sand-like substance onto the surface of the sticker.

Blasting in progress

Engraving on stone

Engraving on wood

6. The abrasive carves the surface only in the open areas of the stencil, while the areas covered by the tape remain untouched.

7. The desired color (if any) is applied on the carved area. As you can see, the supplier has already mixed our color and applies it by spraying it on the logo.

Applying color

Result on stone

8. Once it is dried, the tape is removed and the parent material is cleaned, even scrubbed. This proves that the engraving pattern and color are highly durable.

Washing and scrubbing 

9. The process ends by checking each item one by one to make sure it is spotless and ready to be delivered.

Quality Control 

Result on wood

We felt very fortunate to be invited to attend to this entire process and we wanted to bring you along and make you “accomplices” in yet another step in the making of Cuca.

"Sniff Sniff"

We are now working hard on our marketing plan and apart from coming up with strategies to get Cuca known, we are also looking at developing a strong and consistent overall brand experience.

It is not a secret that we use all five of our senses to make a buying decision, whether consciously or unconsciously and thus a complete brand experience must tackle each of them: what the customer sees, hears, feels, smells and touches. Today we are sharing with you our dedication to our guests’ nose…
You may have noticed that when walking in a cinema the smell of popcorn awakens your taste buds or that the aroma of coffee makes you crave for one. But it is not only the smell of food that makes you hungry… A 2006 study found that customers who ate at a restaurant that used the scent of lavender generally stayed 15 minutes longer and spent 20% more.

Reflecting on this underused sense in marketing, we decided to develop a scent that captures the essence of Cuca. We are looking for something casual but still sophisticated, uplifting, that pulls you out of your worries and into Cuca’s mood to taste and enjoy. Something you notice when you walk in, that you will remember when you walk out and that comforts you while you are with us.

We won’t release Cuca signature aroma yet. It is still in our head and in the hands of our aroma guru.