August 1, 2013
Today, with light winds and sunny skies, was the day to go to Bouma National Park and see the Tavoro Waterfalls at last. It was about 16 miles away, so we’d need a cab.
I’d worried that it might take awhile to hail a cab because there are so few cars in the area. It didn’t turn out to be a problem: before we even finished tying up our dinghy, a truck stopped and the driver asked if we needed a taxi. We told him yes, and explained what we wanted to do. He told us his fee, which would include driving us to the park, hanging out there while we hiked off to experience the falls (which could take a few hours), and then driving us back. It was a fair price; so we hopped in.
Meanwhile a real taxi, having witnessed some of this, pulled over and really gave our driver the stink eye. It turned out our guy was not an official cab driver but a village chief who picks up extra cash by doing things like this. It’s quite an honor to be carted around by a village chief, who also happened to be a very nice guy (and apparently not the chief of the guy who gave him the stink eye)! We ended up passing his name and number along to another boat who came here; he took them all over the place and they had a great time with him!.
The paved road soon gave way to a dirt road, but the truck handled it fine. Our 40-minute route took us along coastline, through jungle vegetation, by villages, and over bridges. It was a very pretty drive, and our chief driver was happy to pull over when I wanted a picture so I didn’t have to take very many from the car.
Below a gallery of photos from our drive, click to enlarge and scroll. –Cyndi
