The coolest hike ever?

Following right on the heels of what we have dubbed our best passage to date is perhaps one of the coolest hikes that we have ever done. Just a few hundred meters from where our boat lies at anchor, the River Dehaies empties into the bay. For those in the area looking for an exceptional trek, you need only begin to walk along the road which parallels the river (calling this a river is stretching the definition of the word in my eyes, at least during the dry season that is). The road will soon give way to a trail but the real hike follows no set trail at all. Instead, you simply work your way upstream by stepping, or in some cases jumping, from boulder to boulder. We have done hikes where a small portion of the trail has had terrain similar to this but never have we hiked for 2 hours working from rock to rock. I commented that kids would love to do a trek like this because there’s really no trail at all, each of us were free to explore and choose our own path. Additionally, even though we were constantly moving upward, as evidenced by the fact that the water continued to rush by us heading downstream, the climb was virtually unnoticeable.

If you undertake this hike and after walking for some time, notice a small parking lot off to your left with a few cars in it, don’t be distracted and give up then because the real treat of the hike lies only about 15-20 minutes more upstream. You will ultimately reach what seems like an impasse with high rock walls on each side of you and the river blocked by a tall boulder. If you have the ability to work your way up and around the large obstacle, you’ll find a spectacular little waterfall for your bathing pleasure. High above your heads the water will be cascading down out of a shoot, akin to an amusement park’s water slide, only in this case, I don’t think I’d want to deal with the landing!

The photographic opportunities along this hike are endless and we walked away having taken well over 250 shots. Because we set off on the trek a bit later in the day (we started just after noon), and we took our time to enjoy the scenery, we decided to take what we had read was a quicker way back down to the village of Dehaies. If you choose to do the same, when you get back to the parking lot that I mentioned, simply leave the river behind and follow the road. It might initially appear as if the road’s not heading down but it soon will and you’ll be back to town in approximately 30 minutes.

We rate this hike 5 stars and given the opportunity, would definitely opt to do the entire trip again. Unfortunately Wi-Fi opportunities are scarce around here so for the moment, you’ll have to settle with my written description and this one and only photograph. I’ll do my best to add some more images when we stumble across a better signal.