We were off the boat early yesterday to hike to the waterfall. The road through town is all paved with Concrete. All the houses are neat and tidy with colorful curtains and bright laundry hanging on the line. As we walked along there were hedges of those white flowers they make hawaiian leys out of, with that incredible perfume that is unimaginable. Out of town a bit, still on the neat concrete toad, the volcanic tower over hangs the road 1000 feet over our head, giving you a strange feeling that makes your walking pace quicken.

Further along, there is a cow hide stretched and drying in the sun. The road crosses a concrete bridge and passes ten bee hives. Now the road rises and becomes steep with switch backs that have us gain altitude quickly. On either side of the road are now Banana trees and Lime and Lemon trees, behind them are tall coconut trees. Still everything is neat and organized. Finally we leave the paved road and start on a "jeep" trail that is bordered by a hibiscus "fence" that is neatly clipped so the flowers are plentiful. A bull with a ring in his nose looks at us casually as we pass. Here is a man up on the hillside cutting brush...

There are some little stone cairns (they call them "stone men" here) that mark where the foot path leaves the jeep trail. Now, the smells and topography remind us of hiking to Stiles Peak in VT!! Except there are huge fig trees and Rosewood and other trees I don't know... the ground is covered with huge strange flowers that have fallen from tree we can't see a hundred feet over our heads. Little lizards that look like they are made out of liquid copper with green tails zip across the rocks. Huge epiphytes grown in the crokes of trees with huge buttresses. Finally the water fall comes into site. We were warned that there hasn't been much rain recently so the water flow was low. But what water does fall, runs down a thousand feet of vertical rock into a pool at the bottom. We had hiked up with Mark and Carolyn from sv Jonathan. Mark strips to his skivvies and dives in. Isobel also goes in, but the rest of us are content to stand up to our knees in the icy water. We see crayfish. Isobel is surprised when we say it is fresh water. "So, we don't have to rinse off?" Of course, her history with water has always been salty...