It sounded like a great deal, I mean normally we pay three dollars just to see one waterfall, but to only have to pay five bucks to see six beautiful waterfalls seemed like a wonderful opportunity to get out of the apartment. I didn’t really give much thought to the five hours part. I love the outdoors and I love to hike, and if I have to hike five hours in order to see six beautiful waterfalls, then so be it. I was told by Raymond that we would be leaving at 7a.m. sharp (which actually never happens, we never leave on time…cause we are going by island time, not American time) which was fine by me, cause hiking in the early morning coolness is a lot better then hiking in the hotness of the afternoon. Becky and I were the only ones from our apartment willing to get up really early and hike all day long. From the other apartments we had: Maggie, April, Jamie, Ashley, Jen, Mark, Gene, Raymond, Emily (Mr. B’s daughter) and Mr. B. When Becky and I walked down to the truck Rusty and Alex were griping about how they wanted to go surfing not hiking (but they go surfing every single week, this wasn’t going to kill them). In the end they decided not to go. We waited around until like 7:30 and then we were off.
It took about an hour to reach a little narrow road that was to take us to the house of the guide (who was going to go with us). He was a very quiet man, we met him on the road, he was out hunting with his gun was over his shoulder…his machete was by his side. He more or less grunted his answers, I had to wondered how many times a month he guided people through the jungle to see the six waterfalls…must get old after awhile.
The first part of our trip was uneventful, we walked up a dirt road, following Mr. B…with our guide bringing up the rear. We suddenly came across a water buffalo that was covered in mud and standing in at least 3 inches of rather smelly/gross looking mud. Mr. B told us that we were going to look like that buffalo when we got out of the jungle later that afternoon. We all laughed and Becky snapped a picture as we walked by.
Now I should interject at this point in time and mention a few things. First off I have found that tevas are good when walking in water, they aren’t particularly that great when sliding down slippery jungle paths. They are great to have when your foot slips into a foot of mud, but when they get wet they tend to rub on your feet and the end result is blisters. The people on the island where slippers when hiking, the slippers that they wear have wonderful grip. They keep your feet from sliding in the slipper and they give you great traction when walking around on wet cement or rocks for that matter. My tevas were covered in mud in a matter of minutes, which made things rather interesting, since my feet were sliding in my tevas and I was sliding down muddy jungle trails and no water was available to wash off my tevas I opted to go barefoot. Next time I am wearing slippers.
Mr. B walked along the path in his bear feet, the rest of us followed alone behind him. There were broken water pipes along the trial that were spraying water six feet in the air…what a waste of perfectly good river water I thought to myself as we walked by, it isn’t like they need to water the jungle, it is already wet enough. Someone up in the front finally got up enough guts to ask Mr. B how long it would take to get to the first waterfall…Mr. B just laughed and said “Depends on how fast you walk, maybe two hours.” Well after two hours of slipping and sliding we came to our first waterfall. It was very pretty, it started out narrow at the top and then came down, and it looked rather like a stream of water coming out of garden hose…It didn’t take long to find waterfall number two. It was so beautiful; out of all six this one was my favorite. We had to walk over a small waterfall to get to the “bridge” which was actually a great big dead tree…we all had to climb up on it and then balance and walk across, on the other side we sat down and watched the water pour down the volcanic rocks and then flow over the baby waterfall and then into the river. We sat there for a time and then Mr. B said it was time to go and find waterfall #3. So everyone filed back onto the log…it was the cutest thing to see…the girls of apartment 6 were holding hands as they walked across the bridge…I was already on the other side so I snapped a picture.
Waterfall #3 was a lot like waterfall #1, it started out small at first and then fell into a pool of water. But it was still beautiful and I loved just looking at it, I seriously started to wonder how there could possibly be six gorgeous waterfalls all flowing into the same river. After taking pictures and resting a bit, we headed off to find waterfall #4. By this point we had to walk in the river, forming a human chain in order to get people from one side to the other…slipping and sliding to get around to each of the waterfalls and generally just having a good time. Waterfall #4 was like waterfall #2 in the sense that it was wider, but I didn’t find it all that pretty…a little farther up Mr. B showed us a deep pool where we could swim, by then all of us were hot and muddy and there was nothing like falling into deep ice cold mountain water. We stayed there for quite some time, splashing in the water and then climbing up the bank of rocks and eating lunch.
By this point all of us were getting a little tired, the waterfalls were starting to look very much the same. And well it was close to 1:00 by then and we were while tired. Waterfall #5 looked suspiciously like waterfalls one and three. It gave me the sense of walking in circles…were we really going anywhere or were we just walking in a big circle? None of us felt like just sitting around waterfall #5, we just wanted to get to the last waterfall. It took some time to walk to and soon we were wading in a great deal of water…Mr. B told us to leave out bags on a little rocky island and then continue on. He said that we were going to have to swim. I got excited cause I had remembered this part from Kelli’s pictures. Eagerly Ashley and Emily and I plunged into the stream. The current wasn’t all that strong, Mark was already climbing up the rocks ahead of us and looking for something to climb…that boy cracks me up…he is like a little mountain goat. Anyway I climbed up the volcanic rock and looked at the waterfall…it was so beautiful, the water was pouring out of an opening of a cave and if you looked at it in just the right angle, the cave opening made the shape of a heart. The best was certainly saved for last. Gene finally caught up and we splashed through the streams of water and he pushed me up this big flat rock with a crack down the middle…there was a different route…but I like challenging myself. I have never been pushed up a rock in that way before…I kinda felt like a kitten being shoved up the wall onto a shelf…really all I need was a good foot hold, but Gene just picked me up and pushed me up the rock…once up the rock I helped Gene up and then we splashed through the stream to where we had front row seats in watching mark climb up the rock and into the mouth of the cave. This made our guide rather nerves…apparently two years ago one of the guides was up in the cave, slipped on a rock and fell to his death…not the nicest story to hear. Mark leaped off the top of the waterfall, and landed safely into the water. I wished that I had a camera and Gene went off to join Mark as he climbed yet another part of the natural wall surrounding the waterfall…I reasoned that someone had to stick around in case they fell and got hurt.
Soon Mr. B told us that it was time to move out and start the long walk back. This was when I was very glad to have a guide. Since all of the waterfalls looked the same to me I wouldn’t know what direction to go in. We walked along the riverbed for a while and then started to climb up some mossy rocks…the climb was steep, but somehow we made it to the trail at the top. At each turn I was like “haven’t I seen that stump somewhere?” Or “I think that tree looks mighty familiar.” Soon nothing looked familiar I had no idea where we were…our guide was chopping his way through the jungle with his machete and we were all following him…Soon all I was noticing was the fact that my feet hurt…I could feel the blisters and with each step my tevas opened them bigger and bigger. Every time we found mud or came to a creek I would plunge my feet into the coolness of it and then continue on. We climbed up one steep climb and then had to slide down the other side…only to be greeted by yet another hill, followed by another slippery slope. Mr. B. kept trying to keep me from falling into the mud, but I always seemed to slide right into it…it was so funny to hear him “Ahhh…noo! Over here…that’s right.” I just love Mr. B he is so cool. To make a long story shorter…we finally emerged from the jungle…all of us were so tired and so sore and all we really wanted to do was take a shower, eat, and then sleep for 12 hours. It had taken us 7 ½ hours to do the entire hike and see all six of the waterfalls…I was so sore and tired, but that was such an awesome experience. True my feet were very torn up, and putting alcohol on my blisters wasn’t very fun at all…but it was quite an experience…and now I will have battle scars to go with it.
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