All work and no play… well that’s just tedious. So one day during our field trip we asked our driver Waswa to drive a few hours up to Sipi Falls. It’s high up on a damn huge hill. The views are amazing! And the falls are beautiful.
In theory you can get all the way to the top of the falls, where it’s almost totally flat. But you can only do that when it’s not raining. Unfortunately when we got there rain it did. But we made it up to the half way point…
The mini-trek begins with a clamber across a rickety old ‘bridge’. We had a ‘guide’ who showed us the way, but almost immediately we set off we acquired a few more who added a bit more local flavor. Their English was outstanding, and clearly influenced by the myriad tourists, and YouTube rappers.
along the route we came across some safari ants. They were big. around 2cm long. With big claw like pincers. The kid-guides told us not to hang around too long, because the ants would come and investigate. I heeded their advice. Rose on the other hand preferred to stand around and talk… 2 minutes later a huge scream. One ant climbed up her trouser leg, and tried to take a chunk out of mzungu meat home! Kid-guides to the rescue, pulled the ant off, and moved her along.
Because of the rain, our goal was the mid-point, where you can get behind the falls. Plenty of photo opportunities, and a great view! The rain picked up, but no fear, banana leaves can be used as umbrellas.
On the way back, Rose decided to buy coffee, so we headed over to the guide-kids base of operations. They had a real Lord of the Flies thing going on. Rules, regulations, codes of conduct. Quite the operation. Hopefully being put to good use.
More pictures from Sipi Falls on Flickr.