Unloading and getting ready for the hike up
We had set our alarm clock early this morning as a few of us planned to hike up the waterfalls and then over to the volcano, a path that I had not tried before. We were up just after 5 in the morning. The plan was that we were going to take Isabella with us and leave the other kids down here, under supervision of my dad. We hoped to be able to meet up with my dad and Sophy up at the volcano, hike down together and then ride back to the bungalows. Isabella did of course not want to come with us. But Erik stepped in voluntarily to take her place. It took a while to get the others rounded up, but just before 6 we were all in one car, riding down the road. It was myself, Lilly, Erik, Thierry, Naveed and Barry.
We made a mistake on arrival and drove up the road to the 3rd waterfall (from the top). Also known as road D3. And it does not connect with any of the other waterfalls by road. So we drove back down again, continued further along the coast, passing through the famous alley of tall palm trees, and took D4 up instead. The second part of the road is very windy and steep at times. We were lucky not to meet another car or truck on the bad parts of the road, because we were perhaps a bit too overloaded to be able to regain momentum if we had had to stop. When we arrived at the end of the road there were no other cars up there.
Unloading and getting ready for the hike up
We unloaded and headed up towards the panels by the entrance of the trail where we looked a bit at the maps. Our plan was to have Lilly walk with us to the 1st waterfall and then return back to the car again. We would continue up to the volcano and then walk back down on the other side of it while she would drive around the island and wait for us at the parking by the volcano.
Down the trail we went. We took the little detour and looked at the second waterfall, which is quite impressive. Nobody else was there. We took a few pictures and then went back tracked to the trail head of the 1st waterfall. We started the climb which became steep rather quickly. We remarked at how nice and dry things were compared to last year. Not surprisingly, we got caught in a major downpour shortly thereafter! Lilly and I had our ponchos with us and Erik had a wind breaker jacket. We huddled under the trees during the worst part of the downpour and then started walking again as the rain turned into drizzle. The previously dry trail had now become a lot more muddy, making it slippery and a bit harder to navigate. Barry was falling behind with Lilly. He then decided to climb back down again. Lilly caught up with us and rejoined our group. We muttered a bit over why Lilly had not given the car keys to Barry and asked him to drive around. We then also realized that we had let Barry down with the only map of the trails that we had as a group! Oh, well.
A beautiful flower along the trail
As the rain stopped completely, Naveed noticed how he had blue streaks on his legs. He started looking for something that could have leached out during the rainfall. His digital camera was wet too. He finally discovered that the problem was his SONY camera strap that did not appear to have waterproof color. The blue color that leached out was very intense. He tried to wipe off his camera but it did not want to start. Hmm...
Naveed feeling blue from his camera (strap)
We continued down the trail and crossed a river in a valley before the 1st waterfall. This river is about 30 minutes before the waterfall we're heading down to. We continued on the trail and reached the 1st waterfall. Nobody else in sight. We were the first ones up today. You could not see the top of the waterfall due to all the clouds. But you cold see the coastline if you looked down the valley. The sun was clearly shining down there but is was cloudy up here. Not too good for taking pictures. We ate a snack, drank some water and rested a little bit. And in an instant the sky cleared at the top of the waterfall and some sun rays made it down to us. Cameras came out and we took some pictures. Even better, Naveed's camera came back to life! This waterfall is worth the hike. Very nice. We walked around a little bit by the base of the waterfall, but were a bit concerned that we had not found the trail head for the final part leading up to the volcano.
Nice flower seen along the hiking trail
We started going back down, looking for a place where there may be a trail head leading upwards. We met the first group of hikers. After about 30 minutes we approached the river that we had previously crossed. Just 10m (30ft) before the river there was a very obscure sign for a trail leading upwards. No indication of where the trail may lead. Only thing the moss-filled old wood sign said was that the trail ahead was dangerous. We decided to try out the trail. It only took about 10m (30ft) before the trail started getting really bad, as in very narrow and steep. We kept getting our backpacks tangled in the trees above us. The trail was not maintained at all. We walked for about 10 minutes without any signs for it going anywhere in particular except aggressively upwards. At this point we were glad that Lilly had not given the car keys to Barry because we were no longer sure that we could walk up to the volcano this way. If we had only had a map! It got difficult enough that we decided to make one last effort to see if we could find any indications of it leading up towards the volcano. We organized ourselves into a relay line. Lilly stopped first with Erik, while Naveed, myself and Thierry continued up until we could barely hear Lilly. Naveed stopped. We continued up until we could barely hear him and I stopped. Thierry let go of his backpack and hiked up way past a point where we could hear him. he must have been gone for 15-20 minutes. He had not found any indications this led anywhere. We decided to back down because we did not have enough supplies to handle a prolonged stay up there, in case we got lost.
Hiking down the trail from the 1st waterfall
We rejoined the regular trail to/from the waterfall. The trail had now turned into a real mud bath. We met more hikers on their way up. Some of them looked at us in disbelief when we told them they had about 40 minutes more to the waterfall. We met one family where the guy had walked up in slippers! He had them on the ground beside him and was cursing about how difficult it was. When he learned that he had another 45 minutes to the waterfall he balked and decided to walk back down with his family. We met one pair of girls who were remarkably nice and clean. We met one lady with a small cane, who had a real hard time walking in the trail. We then got into the muddy area of the trail. It was now incredibly muddy. It was very hard to keep the feet clean. They were already soaked from the rain this morning so we felt less inclined to stay clean. Especially after we had now decided to go back down to the car rather than hike over the mountains. The mud got thicker and thicker. As we met hikers on their way up we could see their smiles in disbelief. We just laughed and continued down. We met one lady with hiking shoes where the sole had separated from the boot and she was just sitting on a bunch of leaves, waiting for her friends. When she learned that it would probably be about 1 1/2 hour for her friends to make it up and back again she was a bit discouraged.
I felt a bit tired towards the last part of the trail. I could feel that my feet and especially my ankles were less peppy. I had to be more careful where I put my feet as to avoid injury. But we finally made it all the way back to the start of the trail. We walked down a little bit and found Barry sitting by the side of the road, reading a book. Moments later Lilly and Thierry caught up with us and we sat down, drank some water and ate a little bit. The mud on our legs started to harden. Naveed still had excess energy and ran up the hill, jumping over a gate, and up towards the fountain at the start of the trail to wash off his shoes and legs. Puh!
Naveed and Erik's feet buried in mud
We got back to the car and took of our shoes/boots. We loaded our gear into the car and went back down again. At this point there were lots of cars parked by the side of the road near the trail head. As we got back to the bungalows we found the other kids and Brigitte at home. All four kids were in the pool. Brigitte had taken the other kids out to visit a banana plantation and they had listened to a guide talking about the plantation and about banana growing in general. They had then returned back and the girls had been chasing lizards. We ate lunch at Thierry and Brigitte's bungalow. It was now around 2:30 in the afternoon. Thierry went to bed after lunch, feeling sick. The kids went back into the pool while I took a nap. Around 4 the kids were asked to come up and do their school work.
We took it easy in the evening. Brigitte had ordered soup from a local restaurant for dinner. This was a creole soupe. It was not excellent, but ok. The kids had a hard time with the soup. Only Karl liked it. The others ended up getting pasta as a backup food. Thierry remained in bed.
Kids are seated for dinner. Erik had gotten everyone kid's
champagne.