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CA Travels Day 17 – Going For A Walk

Posted by Dave Hill | Filed under general

Canoeing down the river

The four of us met our guide Pedro, in Livingston town at 10am and set off to walk to Siete Altares, the Seven Altars, which is a series of waterfalls and pools a few miles from Livingston.  We walked out of the town, through a graveyard, and through rural villages where we were barked at by angry dogs.  We felt quite sceptical to start with, thinking that we shouldn’t have gone with such a cheap company and we could easily walk around town ourselves.  The path got a bit tougher though when we walking through thick forest paths with ants nests and spiky plants to avoid.  We saw massive butterflies, hummingbirds, herons, vulture, and some sort of colourful jungle crab.

We arrived at the ‘birth of a river’, as the guide put it, and walked over rocks through the shall water til it got deeper, and we met another guy with a canoe and we all jumped in.  We canoed for half an hour down the river which brought us to the beach, passing a massive field of wild marijuana along the way.  We were told it was guarded and trying to take some wouldn’t end well.

The seventh altar

We stopped for lunch in a beach bar, and walked along the beach to reach the entrance to Siete Altares.  I found a wicked walking stick to help the climb up the rocky river.  It was light, sturdy, aesthetically pleasing, and a slight curve to it like a banana.  I called it Stick 2000, but it was more of a staff.  The seventh waterfall was the biggest, with a four metre drop and a pool to have a good swim in.  It was really refreshing to jump in the water after walking in the heat and high humidity for hours, and some other dudes were doing flips off the waterfall, but I couldn’t be arsed with that.  I was more interested in soaking my sunburn, and my feet where ants had chewed on them.

We finished the day with a few drinks, and that helped us sleep through the sounds of nature.