A short paragraph in a guidebook mentioned a waterfall inland of our anchorage — a goal worthy of pursuing!
We headed up to the highway to try for a bus; a friendly local informed us that the next bus was 1 hour away, so we hailed a truck instead. I’m not sure the guy had much choice but to stop, what with the 4 of us (Brio + Journey) hailing and waving from the side of the road.
I didn’t really know how far away this hike would be — so we hopped in to the back of this guy’s truck, and off we went.
Riding in the back of the truck, swinging around corners and getting the best bird's-eye view of the countryside you can imagine!
After 45 minutes of driving, our driver made a questioning gesture (like, ‘hey gringos? you wanna get out now or what??’) so out we hopped. Our destination was a small dusty little town, mostly a few houses spread up and down the highway. We started walking.
"Oh what a pretty scene, I'll take a picture" ... but that little bitey bastard took a freaking chomp on my thigh only a few moments later. Here I thought it was only the mosquitoes that bite -- I forgot about the crazy freaking dogs. Left some brag-worthy bruises, but no real blood or guts.
As we were walking, Ruben, an awesome local guy who grows coffee beans in the winter and picks grapes in California in the summer, offered to show us how to get to the elusive waterfall.
Ruben, helping Jon through a particularly slippy tricky spot -- Jeff & Dori from Journey are in the background
Beautiful green and lush growth surrounded the whole hike
We weren’t really sure what Ruben wanted for being our guide; you don’t usually get a personalized tour to a waterfall for nothing! But, to our utter delight and joy, Senior Ruben actually turned down our offer of cigarettes or tip, and simply urged us to ‘come again!’. Kindness in its simplest form.
The perfect pool at the base of the waterfall; it wasn't the biggest waterfall, but swimming in it was sheer delight!
Swimming in the waterfall's pool
The water was the perfect cool down after our little jungle hike
Ruben told us that the brave ones jump from here in to the pool; clearly none of us were brave ones 🙂
Sometimes the best adventures are the unplanned ones; this day was certainly evidence of that! Our trip home was a little more complicated — we caught a bus part way, were given a taxi for another portion of the journey (the local passengers literally jumped out of the back for us), and then dinghied back to the boats.
A perfect day in so many ways!
(Oh and Jon says we’re bringing a machete for the dogs next time…;) )