Today was supposed to be a really boring day. The weather forecast was rubbish, and we figured it might be a good day to get flights and activities booked ahead for our ongoing destinations. That plan however, went swiftly out the window.
It had rained for about four or five hours solid, it was around midday at this point. We walked to the supermarket with our pack-a-mac’s on (great purchases) and grabbed some snacks mainly just to pass the time. Then we got back, attempted to hand wash our clothes using what we thought was hand wash (turned out to be fabric softener – our clothes still smell good so who cares), and ate our snacks.
We thought at this point, around 2pm, it would be a good idea to go for a low-key walk around the village. We wandered past some shops and restaurants, a church, a football pitch, and then stumbled across a sign for a waterfall and natural pool. Like the typical tourists we are, itching for cool photos, we followed the signs.
This lead us on to an actual trekking trail. We realised about 20 minutes in that we completely underestimated the duration of time it would take us to get to this waterfall. Nonetheless the trail was beautiful. It was so calm, green and vibrant. There was always something to look at. It was however, rather difficult at certain points!
There were some steeper sections to this trail where, if you lost your footing you could have easily ended up miles down a hill somewhere covered in mud. In Jake’s words, it was ankle breaking territory. We went slowly and tried to place our shoes in other people’s tracks, we quite literally put ourselves in other peoples shoe prints.
About 50 minutes into the trek we asked some bystanders on the same trial where we were leading to (because at this point we thought we’d gone wrong). To our surprise we were on the right track. This was lucky, because we were very close to turning back. We reached the waterfall, it was no iguasu falls, but it was still a thrilling end to the trail.
We were reluctant to dip into the freshwater lakes as you couldn’t see below, but we were peer pressured by some locals (who managed to persuade us without even speaking the same language) and surely enough we were in the fall. It was fun. It was actually a lot more forceful than expected, and physically took my breath away (in a good way).
The trek back was slippery, we both had a few of those gasping moments where you feel your foot go one way and your body the other. Luckily we made it out without a drop of mud on our bodies, our shoes not so. I was very proud of myself for packing some sugary jelly snakes as at this point we definitely needed them. What we thought would be a chilled day was actually an action packed one, as Jake said, this is what travelling is all about.
Alpaca Backpackers 