Hidden waterfall hike!
Laura and I went for a hike in the Podocarpus national park today. We hitchhiked to Malacatos,walked for a bit and then got another ride to Vilcabamba. We never got great directions on exactly how to get to the park, and we ended up going down at marked trail with a nice tourists sign, walked for about a half kilometer and met a man who told us we were not going the right way. We made it back out to the road and ended up getting another ride for free from a nice man in the back of his truck.
When we arrived at the entrance of the park there was a very nice professional Park sign with an arrow showing us where to goand that would be the first and only sign in the park!!! The first been a trail was pretty steep but after we were up on the ridge it was a beautiful walk. Without knowing it because there were no signs we walked past the turn off to the waterfall and probably walked three or 4 km further into the park. We ran into another trekker coming the opposite way who said we had passed the waterfall quite a ways back so we turned around and walked with him.
On the way back we met another couple who were looking for the waterfall also and told them we were going to walk to it now but they decided not to join our group. When we got back to the turn off I put some sticks on the ground in the shape of an arrow pointing to the gate for the other couple. They obviously didn't see the arrow on the ground because they never did come down to the waterfall which is very beautiful and we chilled out there and have some snacks. After that we just walked back to Vilcabamba, had some drinks and chilled out, then headed back to the house,