Slipping on moss in the dark

I made a new friend. No, not the gecko that creeps out from behind the curtains when he thinks I am not looking. A real person this time. He is an attorney down here working for the attorney general's office. He got to the island two weeks before I did, so we are figuring things out together. The other night we decided to go exploring. I had heard about some waterfalls that only took about 5 minutes to hike to, so between the time we got off work and the time the sun set, we decided to give it a go.

Things started off bad. Trail? There was supposed to be a trail right? Well, we started down what we thought was the trail, but it ended up in the river. So, we went sloshing up the river -- that's got to lead to the waterfall, right?

When the water got too deep, we scrambled along the uber slippery rocks along the shore. That neither of us slipped and broke our necks was a miracle.

At the five minute mark there was no sign of the falls, not even the sound of rushing water in the distance, just the croaking of frogs and the quite flutter of bats' wings overhead. (Lots of bats down here by the way, fruit bats though, not the bite-your-neck-and-give-you-rabbies kind. Oh, and it's illegal to kill the bats. Apparently they are pretty tasty but the population was dwindling so the Samoa government put the kibosh on killing the flying rats, but I digress).  

We pressed on for another five minutes. Still no sign of the falls, and darkness was starting to close in.

"Should we turn back?" I asked. "Don't want to have to find our way back in the complete dark."

"Let's keep going, it's probably just around the bend."

I agreed and we pressed on. One bend lead to another. The darkness thickened around us, especially in the shadows of the thick jungle foliage.

Finally, as the sun was sending its last bending rays of light over the horizon we arrived at the falls. Were they awesome? Yes. Of course I forgot my camera. That may be a good thing though because otherwise I surely would have dropped it in the river somewhere along the way.

The hike back to the car was in fact as difficult and frightening as I had anticipated. But we made it with only minor scraps, bruises, and mosquito bites. I didn't even put my hand down on a frog when I tried to steady myself. That may have been the biggest miracle of all.

The next day I found out (1) there is in fact a trail, (2) it only takes five minutes if you are on the trail, and (3) there are even better waterfalls if you go past the first one. Oh well, I'll save that adventure for another day when there is more light. Here are the falls we made it to -- a photo taken by someone  (my good friends the Temple family) with enough sense to go during the day.