We resume the story as I am driving the route to the purported waterfall – the one that I was unable to find on the bike. As I drive this road, I pass a couple of gated places. I wonder if one of them is the waterfall, but none of them were a) 5km past the turnoff and b) obviously waterfall entrances. And, there are no signs indicating that any of them is a business, or the approach to a waterfall. So, I keep going. Eventually I get to a creek crossing that seems, even in my scope-crept state, too deep to drive through safely. So, I find a flat spot off the road and park the car, figuring I’ll wade the creek crossing, then walk around the next bend and see what I can see.
Doesn’t the little car look rugged?
Up the road from the creek crossing there is another gated place. It looks like this is the end of the road. This has to be the waterfall, since I didn’t see it along the road, and there is no more road. The gate is open, so I pass through, eyes peeled for signs of the waterfall. I cross an open lot and find a narrow footpath that follows an arroyo through the jungle. The lady at the bike shop mentioned an arroyo in connection with the waterfall, so it’s all looking quite promising.
The path veers up, and up and up and up. It bends away from the arroyo, but since I don’t have anywhere else to go, I keep to the path as it winds up to the crest of a peak. I can see the arroyo down below me, but I don’t see any land around the arroyo that’s high enough to cause a waterfall … my choices are up on top of the dry peak, or down on the flat with the arroyo. I hear cowbells and strain my ears in hopes that I will hear the sound of falling water underneath the sporadic clanking but it is not to be. There is no falling water; and besides, even if the topography supported a waterfall, the arroyo is nearly dry.
I grind my way up to the top of the peak, and decide that I’m OK with how the day has turned out. There’s no waterfall, but I get this view:
It’s going to get dark in another hour, so I make my way back down, cross back over the stream and retrieve the car. Except for one encounter with a stubborn bull (is there any other kind of bull?) the trip back into town is uneventful.
Even though there is no express prohibition against driving the car through all manner of streams and gullies, I decide it would be best if the car goes back clean, so the next morning I leave my hotel early enough to drop the car off for a good washing before I head back to the airport and on to the next leg of my mileage run adventure.
Jennifer Lesher 