This morning we managed to squeeze six people into our little rental car for the short drive to the Telaga Tujuh waterfall. It is just 2 kilometers north of Oriental Village. Lonely Planet had said it was a 10 minute walk up to a waterfall where you could slide down the rocks. We were envisioning a waterfall like the one in Vanuatu, with a big waterfall where you jump into a pool of water that leads into a series of several tiny waterfalls where you slide from waterfall to waterfall.

We pulled into the parking lot. The “walk” is up a steep staircase carved into the mountain. The steps are made of concrete and there are benches placed every few feet. The trees are tall and provide good shade, but it doesn’t feel very “naturey”. About 10 minutes later we reached a sign saying there were 638 steps total and we had 367 more to go. We couldn’t believe we were less than half way up. Sigh. Huffing and puffing, we reached the top of the staircase in about 10 more minutes. We were disappointed to see there was no waterfall at all, just five or six small pools of water from a stream. A couple people were sitting in one of the pools. This couldn’t be the spot. There isn’t a waterfall.

We looked at a map posted near the pools. There were two paths Continue reading →