The trip to the waterfall
Rogue
Alan and Noi not sure which is which
Mon 20 Apr 2009 20:06
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The trip to the waterfall:
One of the two things to do in the bay of whatever
you want to call it, is take a hike to the 200’ waterfall for a swim. Off we set
at 10:30 for what we are told is a one hour walk there and one hour back. I
manage to get the directions slightly wrong, I thought they said turn left at
the dirt road when, it turns out, they actually said go straight until the road
turns into a dirt road and then turn left. Anyway, Noi and I head the wrong
way.
The road we take forks at a point about half an
hour walk from our start so 30 minutes to go me thinks. We take the right hand
fork which follows a river and a series of small water falls, after an hour or
so we decide we are on the wrong road and go back to the fork. The other arm of
the fork also follows a river and a series of small waterfalls. Again after what
we think is an hour we come to the end of the trail and decide we are on the
wrong track yet again. We do however come across what appears to be an abandoned
banana plantation so of course Noi fills the rucksack with any available
bananas.
The bananas withstanding we start heading back a little despondently, being the only tourists in the history of Fatu Hiva not to have found the trail to the waterfall. Lo and behold, ten minutes into the walk back Noi spots a wild chilli tree!!!! And then another and then another. Eyes light up and the world has just turned into sweetness and light. Twenty minutes of furious picking and we have stripped half a dozen trees. All pockets bulging we continue with our expedition with renewed vigour. This by the way is the first time Noi has been able to find fresh chillies since leaving Trinidad which is now well over a year ago. Those chillies were also found accidentally in the wild! Anyway to continue the sojourn; we go back to the
main road and try going further away from the village. Ten minutes down
the road the pavement turns to dirt and there is a turning on the left. 40
minutes later with a great deal of up and down over rocks and under fallen trees
we get to the 200’ waterfall !!! By this time I am totally knackered and
basically fall into the water for a swim. It is an amazing waterfall, photos to
follow, and a fantastic swim.
With no watch between us we estimate the time to be
about 15:00 and time to start heading back. Well my knees are not that great
these days and after walking almost none stop for 5 or 6 hours, the last 2 hours
with a rucksack full of bananas and about 10kg of chillies in my pockets, I am a
bit wobbly. Five meters down the track I slip and bash my shin on a rock and
fall head first into the river with my starboard side making contact with a very
hard rock. 10 minutes of recuperation and we are off again, with a slight list.
After another 10 minutes the pain in the shin is being replaced by a much
greater pain in my starboard upper thigh. It takes a few minutes of increasing
agony before Noi quietly points out that she can smell freshly crushed chilli
and have I gone and squished her newly found stash. Turns out I am now walking
about with puréed chilli in my pocket which is in the process of removing the
skin from my leg. Plan B is that I start to salvage whatever chilli’s are still
in one piece and transfer them to the only other container available, the pocket
of the swimmers I have just been using. After the second dip of my hand into the
mess in my shorts pocket the backs of my fingers start going on fire and I
quickly decide there should be a plan C. The transfer procedure is stopped and I
decide then to remove the chillies from my swimmers back into the shorts pocket
and then to change from the shorts to the swimmers. This completed we start on
our way again. Would you believe it the leg goes on fire again, turns out some
of the puree contaminated the fine mesh pocket of the swimmers and we start the
whole process over again. Luckily there are 3 river crossings on the way back
where I can submerge my starboard thigh, port side bruised shin, aching knees,
burning fingers and by now inflamed nose, I had an itch and forgot my hands were
contaminated with the hottest substance known to man!!
We arrived back at the boat at 17:00 with Noi
pleased as punch, we had also stumbled upon half a dozen mangoes and a dozen
lemons, and me feeling like I had just had 9 rounds with a very large
Polynesian. Noi managed to salvage a few hundred chillies, my mishap didn’t make
a dent in the final tally.
Gave some Chilli to Zen, they gave us a Gerry can
to get some petrol for them in Hiva Oa and hopefully return it to them if we see
them in the Tomato Islands…… lifted the dinghy onto deck and ready to leave for
Hiva Oa tomorrow. A long long day.
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