Last week's Sunday I went on a daytrip together with Tracy and Collin, two of my fellow colleagues at CEDEI. We decided to head for the waterfalls near the village of Girón so as to escape the city's crowded and polluted atmosphere for a while.

Our trip starts at the so-called Terminal Sur or South terminal, where the buses to Girón leave from. This bus terminal is not even slightly more than just a few parking lots along a busy main road, but the bus is easy to recognize carrying bright orange signs saying 'Girón'. We get on the bus and in about an hour we arrive in Girón. While some people are trying to get some more sleep during the bus ride I'm enjoying the beautiful landscape that quickly passes by.

Girón looks like a small town: quiet and nice, but not too much too see. After replenishing at a local store we decide to aim for the waterfalls straight away, which are located about 6 km uphill near the village of El Chorro. Now comes the major choice: do we want to spend a few dollars on a ride by a pickup truck or are we going to hike? We decide we'll do the last and start walking uphill. The road is very steep so we get the view on Girón as a quick reward, but it rapidly gets tougher and we're getting more exhausted in the Sunday morning sun. Tropical plants are everywhere around us. As Collin remarks, it feels like being in the jungle. Dogs barking all across the roads don't give us much of a feeling of comfort but we try and manage to keep on track. After about 2 kilometers we arrive at a fork junction, where we turn left, not being sure if this is the right direction. After about 5 minutes a truck driver sends us back denoting that we definitely should take the other direction if we'd like to see the falls. We continue our hike uphill by walking through some very small and even more quiet villages. Some trucks pass by claxoning to gain attention. But no way, we're committed to walk by ourselves. The view gets more and more interesting when the sun disappears and some fog starts to appear. I recognize the slender contours of an amazing fall in the far distance. After about 1.5 hours we reach the entrance of the park where we can pay our entrance fee.

Our route leads towards a path and staircase, basically made of wood and clay. We can already smell the waterfalll while we're almost crawling (yeah hand and feet) to avoid hitting some collapsed trees. Finally we arrive at the waterfall which we can almost touch from the bridge that hangs straight in front of it. I'm happy to have brought my rain jacket with me as it gets quite chilly here!

The seventy-meter fall is a true example of mother nature's beauty. It was absolutely worth the climb and being satisfied we descend on our way back to Girón. We decide that we have hiked enough and hop on u truck. Having the upper hand (the driver obviously doesn't want to drive back with an empty truck ) we only pay 50 cents per person for this ten-minute ride.