A Day in the Woods

Today, Ingrid (my new friend from the Netherlands) and I went for a leisurely hike in the woods. To my surprise, the forest retains it's jungle atmosphere and flora, despite the increased altitude.

We started out by walking up a bricked path to a cute little waterfall, which is sadly littered with trash from a neighboring upstream town.




We then continued on to a dirt trail, which started out with cute bridges and easy paths, with a few uphill climbs...

But after a while, it became steep and slippery, with trees to climb under and over and semi-dry stream beds to traverse. The picture below is of poor quality, but it shows an example of the trail we hiked. The black area in the upper left is a tree that we had to duck under, before heading up a wet, leaf-covered trail. Fortunately, it had roots that we could stand on to avoid sliding down the hill. (And, no, the picture is not crooked, the earth is.)



After a wrong turn due to confusing signage and vague maps (there are no true topos of this area), a hike that was supposed to take just over an hour and a half, turned into four hour hike instead, during which we only saw three other hikers.

Mind you, I am not complaining. It was rather humorous and, although we only intended to take a relaxing walk, it was actually a very pretty and interesting hike. I am just glad I did not attempt it alone, as it had a few tricky parts that could strand you in the woods by yourself.

All in all, it was nice to spend a day with nature.