Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls

So, we are in another year. It is amazing how fast last year went by,
and how little I updated my blog. I am extremely ashamed of myself.
However, my faithful readers, you will be pleased to know that one of
my resolutions this year is to constantly update my blog. In fact, I
plan to update it so much that you will be sick of reading it. I will
start by recounting my adventure on the island of Santo during the New
Years 2010. I originally promised to write it at the beginning of last
year, but life called and said 'let them wait". Well, the wait is over
and here is the long awaited sequel to "I'm on boat" titled "don't go
chasing waterfalls".

Six of us volunteers brought in the New Year together and it was fun
and filled with the typical things you expect young people to do when
they have any occasion to get together. After New Years day, our two
hostesses proposed a plan to us. They came and with beguiling voices
asked if we would be interested in going on a hike. I generally am not
a hiking sort of fellow. When I think of hiking, I think of
unnecessary exertion in an effort to see "nature", but I figure
"nature" is happy where it is and I am happy in my house with a cold
drink, sprawled in front of the TV. Therefore my answer to their
suggestion was no. Some of the others were interested and some were
not. Then our hostesses, I will call them W and Z, fluttered their
eyelashes and said "but it is an underwater cave." Now everybody else
was really excited and really wanted to go, except for me, who became
even more adamant because of a very important fact, my inability to
swim. I tried to use this as an excuse and said "well, if only I could
swim, I would go. Oh well!" However, I was foiled because W and Z
triumphantly said "well, the water only gets up to your knees and the
highest it ever gets is up to your shoulders, so there Josh!" I was
trapped, I had no choice to but acquiesce to their demands and agree
to go. I will admit that I was also mildly interested in seeing an
underwater cave. W and Z pumped their hands in triumph and went to

On the way to the Hike

arrange the trip.

The day of the trip, we jumped on the back of a truck and drove for
about an hour thirty minutes to the beginning of the hike. The hike is
apparently a tourist attraction and is called the Millennium Cave
Hike. With a name like that I should have been warned, after all, we
all know what was supposed to happen at the beginning of the
millennium. We got to the beginning of the hike and it was a village.
We went inside a small building and waited for our guides. After a
short wait, our guides came carrying a lot of life jackets and flash
lights. At the sight of the life jackets, I begin to get apprehensive;
however, I calmed myself down. The leader of the guides, a wiry man of
medium height began to explain what the hike would consist of. At some
point in his explanation he said that we would have to swim for 45 minutes. At that point, I stopped the guide and asked him to clarify. He repeated what he said previously and explained that although we would have to swim down a river for 45 minutes, there water was shallow in a lot of places, and there was an alternate route if I really did not want to swim. I decided to go ahead with the hike,

The Bamboo Bridg

mainly because of my desire not to stay in a strange village for three
hours by myself.

The hike began and was wonderful in the beginning. We walked on a
level trail and I began to be lured into a sense of well being. At one
point, we walked across a bamboo bridge that crossed a chasm. The
bamboo bridge was not fastened to anything on either side, the bamboo
were just laid across the chasm and whenever a bamboo started rotting,
another fresh one was just laid over it. There was a shiver of fear
crossing it, but the danger was only illusory, the bridge was
perfectly safe. I should have known that would change. Eventually, the
trail started going downhill. The ground was really muddy and
slippery. However, logs were laid across the road to make the going
easier. There were times when the ground went straight down and we had
to hold on to a rope while we climbed down ladders made from rotting
wood.

Eventually we got to the entrance of the cave which was in a valley. At this point, I had some apprehensions because I realized

The Entrance of the Cave

that to get back to the village, we would have to climb up.
The guide told us a custom story about the cave and painted our face
with a red claylike substance according to their custom, then he
handed us flash lights and we went inside the cave. The cave was pitch
black and there were rocks everywhere. The water, true enough only
came up to our knees. Footing was horrible and we kept slipping
because the ground was made up of small, oddly shaped stones and we could not see them. Sometimes we held on to the walls of the cave for
balance and got introduced to the sensation of bat droppings (they are very slimy and disgusting, although Bat meat itself is delicious!..story
for another time). All around us was the noise of bats as they flew overhead and sometimes we would hear the noise of bats we just disturbed as they flapped away, but we could not see them. The lights
of our flash lights, while strong were swallowed up by the darkness of

The Exit of the Cave

the cave. I admit that if I was by myself, my imagination would have
been working overtime and I would have been frightened. The cave was so dark that from quite a distance away we could see the light of the exit. Contrary to the other light, this light we wanted to walk
towards. After walking about a mile, we came to the exit of the cave.
At the end, we all breathed a sigh of relief and slapped each other on
the back and exclaimed, "what a nice hike that was". Little did we
know that the real hike was ahead of us.

While we rested and had lunch, the other guides left and the
remaining guide told us to follow him. We grabbed our life jackets and followed the pied piper. We walked for a while, and then eventually we

Canyon Hiking

had to start climbing giant rocks. I believe what we did in this
segment is called canyon hiking. We had to climb up giant, slippery
rocks, into little caves made by rocks stacked up on each other, jump
from one rock to another. There were footholds cut into these rocks,
but they are also wet and slippery. At this point I was nervous
because of the element of extreme danger. A little mistake while
crossing from one rock to the other had a high chance of resulting in
a broken bone and incapacitation. Eventually we saw the river we would have to swim across for 45 minutes. The guide then asked if I wanted to go the alternate route and the others would swim straight down the river and we would all meet up at the end of the river. I asked him how the alternate route was and he said we would basically continue the canyon hiking. I told him, no thank you, I would rather brave the water than take the chance of falling off one of those slippery rocks. I put on my life jacket and we all jumped into the river. To be honest, it was not bad, there were times when the water was deep and I had to float, then there were times when we could walk and I could feel comfortable. There was a time I floated into a mini waterfall and panicked because my eyes were closed and I was not floating out again like I expected. Eventually somebody pulled me out and when I opened my eyes, I was extremely embarrassed because this was a case of a six foot man thinking he was drowning in the four feet section of the
pool.

We finished swimming down the river and at this point I had some resentment towards my companions because they had so much fun in the water, while I was focused on not downing. We started walking again
and then we got to a cliff and down this cliff, water was running. I will call it a waterfall, although it was not like Victoria Falls. The guide told us that we would have to climb this waterfall to continue our journey. At this point I was past the point of no return, so I had to keep going forward. In my mind, I started praying, "God, I do not want to die, just let me make it and I will not do anything so foolhardy again."

We started climbing the waterfall. Handholds and footholds were cut into the cliff and there was a rope hanging down that we also had a constant hold of. However, again things were very slippery and a
mistake while moving up would result in a fall down a very high cliff. In my mind was thinking "ebi mi ni, ki ni bisnes mi pelu Oyimbo " Eventually, we got to the top of the waterfall and I took a breath of relief. However, the last and worst test was to come. We now had to walk across the top of the cliff we just climbed and the road was really narrow, so narrow that one foot had to be ahead of the other at
all times. The ground was muddy, not slippery per say, but there was
nothing to hold on to for balance. On my left side was a shear drop

The waterfall where I almost "drowned"

down the cliff we had just climbed and on my right was another wall of
rock and only small plants, which could not support anybody's weight.
At this point, I am not ashamed to say, a single tear rolled down my
left cheek, just one tear though. I cannot stand heights and whenever
I am high, I always feel like a stray gust would blow me over. It was
almost impossible for me to continue. However, I knew that I could not go back, so I forced myself to start going forward. The whole way
across, I had to fight a fear that I was going to fall any second. The
host dad of one of our hostesses was really helpful here and stayed
back to help me, encouraging me and giving me his hand when I felt I
could not go on. Eventually I got to the road proper and finally the
trial was over! I believe that the moment my feet touched dry, solid
ground and I saw a wide field all around me was the happiest I had
ever been in my life.

We walked back to the village and started debriefing. While
debriefing, one of my friends said "it was so wonderful, while I was
climbing the waterfall, I was in such awe." I honestly could have
punched him at that moment. The thought going through my mind was "are
you serious? That was the most dangerous thing I have ever done in my
life, and I have done some dangerous things. My every being was
concentrated on me not making a mistake and dying and this guy has the
time to be in "awe!"

Eventually the adrenaline came down and the fear passed and I started
to appreciate it. However, what did I learn from this experience? If

Me getting my face painted

any peace corps volunteer asks me to go on a hike, my answer will be a
resounding NO! I do not care how beautiful it will be and what I will
see. They could say, lets go on a hike and at the end of it you will
see a phoenix or a unicorn, or whatever and I will still say no. I
have realized that other Peace Corps volunteers apart from me are
crazy!!!! Just playing, but seriously…I have crossed putting my life
in danger on a hike off my bucket list and will never, ever, do it
again