The Waterfalls and Flowers

As evidenced by my blog, I love new experiences on my island home. However, when I am invited to a day of exploring with my friends Vickie and Tonie, I have to ask for all of the details before I commit. These are two very strong women, for crying out loud they climbed Mt. Fuji earlier this month! They mentioned hiking to a waterfall, and I wanted to make sure I could keep up. I was so glad I didn't let my trepidation of hiking in the jungle hold me back, especially since the waterfall ended up being only a two minute walk from where we parked the car!

We drove north to Nago in search of Todoroki Falls following directions that should have led us to an ice house as a landmark. We weren't exactly sure what an ice house looks like, and at first we ended up parking on top of a mountain in the middle a farm before we realized we may have missed a turn somewhere along the way. We drove back down the mountain, made a left turn we had originally missed, and parked at a building where men were loading ice into a truck. So that's what an ice house looks like!

From the parking lot we could here the rushing water, and all we had to do was walk across a bridge before we could see the falls peeking through the trees. We climbed up some boulders to take a picture, and we discovered the pool at the base of the falls! I would not be brave enough to go swimming on my own, but with the encouragement of my friends I jumped into the freshwater swimming hole as well!

We climbed some more boulders to get even closer to the waterfall. We could even feel the mist on our backs. We simply had to take pictures, the scene was absolutely stunning. We were the only ones there and had the entire view to ourselves. 

After climbing and swimming we were hungry and headed out to a favorite hamburger joint...that was closed on Wednesdays! So we changed courses and headed to a cafe with good reviews online...that was also closed! We were starting to get frustrated and stopped at the first building we saw that had pictures of food on the outside.

It was a huge gift shop, but at least there was a restaurant inside where we ordered taco rice and iced tea. After we ate and could focus a little better, we began to wonder why the gift shop was in the middle of nowhere. As it turns out, we had stumbled onto a tourist attraction. It was a tropical garden in the mountains that you could walk through at your own pace. We purchased tickets and spent a little less than an hour admiring the bright blooms and butterflies. There were other bugs that I did not admire, but I was told I should expect those in nature. I did my best to ignore them and focus on the view.

I cannot wait to see what other activities I find myself doing as I try to keep up with my courageous, active friends!