EXPEDITION LOG #179: 2018-09-17
“... THE WORK WAS HARD BUT ALSO FUN …”
It has been another early morning but on this day we set out to cut up trees and gather bamboo from the surrounding mountains. We traveled along rough country roads to the farmer’s house who would lend us told and show us some materials which could be gathered. Cutting the logs, each one at least thirty-centimeters in diameter was slow and frustrating because our saw kept having problems. Eventually we had gathered most of the wood that was needed and it was time to collect the bamboo which I had cut some days earlier. Before we set out again, the senior farmer offered me a tincture made of wasps in kaoliang which was a bit sour tasting and pleasant. There was much bamboo to collect; sixty or more pieces, each four to five meters long. The work was hard but also fun and afterwards we trucked it all back to our homestead where I would use it later on during our stay in Dahu.
“... DEEPER INTO THE MOUNTAINSIDE JUNGLE …”
In the afternoon we pushed up the mountain to get an aerial view of the local landscape. About halfway up, we stopped at a strawberry farmer’s house with a particularly good view. There we ate dragon fruit and pomelo while we admired the vastness of the valley below, bordered by a ring of mountains. The strawberry farmer led us deeper into the mountainside jungle. Every meter we walked required a meter of bush to be cut by machete. It was slow moving and the mosquitoes were ravenous at the buffet which was offered every time we had to stop in order for the dense undergrowth to be chopped. Eventually our party reached our destination, a ten-meter tall waterfall.
We continued on our journey into the darkness of the mountain finding more waterfalls. The second was violent and powerful. The third was the smallest but it had a deep pool of blue water and was hidden under a dense canopy of foliage overhead. I stripped down to my underwear and swam in the cool, refreshing, clear water. To get to the fourth waterfall we had to cross an old concrete bridge with no railings which would protect us from a fall to the rocks below. A wide and shallow pool was filled by the four-meter tall fourth waterfall which flowed over black rocks and under the jungle’s canopy. The whole area was dimly lit, even in the middle of day, and a bit mysterious.
“... DEEPLY HIDDEN IN THE JUNGLE AND RARELY VISITED …”
Leaving the mountain’s jungle, we passed among the field for growing strawberries and ginger, pumpkin, cabbage and tomatoes in order to get home after a long day in the wilderness that surrounds Dahu. Our local guides for the day had showed us places so deeply hidden in the jungle and rarely visited that we would have never been able to find them.
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