Sanje

After being victims to the unorganised registration process at the national park gate we start a 4 km hike up to Sanje Falls with a young apprentice guide. National park fees are to be paid separately from the "guides association fees". But, our guide tells us that he will not be seeing any cent from these fees! At the end we will have to tip him for his service. While they are in training, apprentice guides are considered to be "voluntary guides" but nobody informed us about that in advance. What a strange, non-transparent and unfair system.

The hike takes us from 300 m up to around 800 m and the falls fall around 170 m down a bare sedimentary rock formation which can be nicely pictured from the lower bathing ponds. From the top of this rock we get wonderful easterly views over the swampy plains of huge sugarcane plantations. We continue higher up and reach yet another bathing pool at a smaller waterfall. Some locals are chilling out here. After a lunch snack and a bunch of show-off push-ups our foreheads also turn into waterfalls and we decide to descend back into the lower pool for a refreshing swim.

Interestingly, we do not see many birds in the pristine forest except for giant hornbills. But, what lacks of bird variety is compensated by different kinds of colourful butterflies, dancing on the paths in front of us and copulating. In the distance we hear the call of a Livingstone's turaco. Red colobus monkeys keep their distance but observe our actions curiously and – from time to time – throw chewed fruit peels down at us. There are no chameleons around today but, instead, a brown scorpion is hiding under the leaf of a bush. Very scaring because we could have easily touched it with our shoulders when passing by unknowingly!

Our hike ends with a thought-provoking situation: Shortly before, while sill within the boundaries of the national park, our guide picked up a plastic bottle in an exemplary manner while quoting one of the sign boards "Trash in, trash out". Here, back in the village, just a few steps outside of the park boundary, he opens his backpack and throws all of his neatly collected trash back into the bush. Our bewildered looks he counters with "Somebody will pick this up and burn it later, for sure".Read more