After a solid night's sleep at Surfer Inn, I got a good start on Day 3. I hopped back on the highway and went south towards Ilan city (which I had been aimlessly exploring the previous day, looking for a hostel). Armed with my Lonely Planet guide book and some random tourists maps I'd collected along the way, I searched for something to do. Wufengchi Waterfall was next on my to do list.
Some of the attractions I saw on my trip were well marked on the highway, and there were even signs that directed me down a few side streets. There was often a point, however, where the signs relieved themselves from duty and assumed I knew the rest of the way. As was the case with Wufengchi Waterfall, I was left with a few different maps, wishing I could zoom in just one or two more clicks to get to street level.
After driving in circles for only about 15 minutes, I miraculously stumbled upon Jiaosi Visitor Center. It was at this facility I started to really notice my apprehension to speak Chinese. I went inside with a goal: find out where the damn waterfall is. But, I casually strolled in and pretended to look through some brochures until someone asked me if I needed help with anything.
The conversation, in Chinese, of course, led me to specific directions to the waterfall, which happened to be about 5 minutes away. In the midst of a sigh of relief, I thanked my wonderful helpers and shoved off.
Wufengchi is actually a series of three waterfalls. Tourists can walk up a trail and view all three, noting that the height of the falls increases exponentially.
Although not quite expecting it, at this point in my trip I was mentally prepared for a hike of great magnitude and multiple hours. Despite the slowly rising morning temperature, and the ninety-something humidity, I began my ascent.
The first waterfall of the trilogy was not that impressive at all. In fact, I wasn't sure it was part of the series until the way down. It didn't seem like there was much water "falling," as much as it was just flowing down some rocks at a steep angle. Next.
I liked the second one. It was tall and thin and had a really serene feel to it. It wasn't loud and crashing; it was the kind of sound that you'd find on an ambient CD at Target. There were a few people soaking their feet in a shallow pool at the base. Lovely.
The third and final waterfall is fully appreciated by anyone who sees it, if not by its own aesthetic beauty, then at least because of the effort it takes to even see it. The climb was more of what I was used at that point: straight up switch backs with no indication of where the end was. This one had the the best reward by far.
Just as I was wondering if I was even going the right way, I turned a corner and BAM!, there was a 160 ft. waterfall in front of me. Even standing at a distance, I had to crane my neck to see the source of this thing. Like the previous fall, it wasn't coming down in buckets, but rather gracefully floating down in front of a green cliff face. I sat and stared for a few minutes while I waited for my pulse to settle down from the climb.
The distance from the second to the third waterfall was really pretty far. Although at times I felt like I was dragging myself up, I knew that I was going fast enough that there wouldn't be anyone else arriving at the spot for at least 10 minutes. With that in mind, I treated myself to a quick dip in the chest-deep pool underneath the waterfall.
As far as Day 3 goes, that's about it. I went to a lake, which looked just like a lake. Then I went to some crap cultural museum (Taiwan's National Center for Traditional Arts, which I had to pay to get into, despite Lonely Planet's claim that it was free entry). After 30 minutes of trying to pretend it wasn't crap, it started to rain so I made a mad dash for my scooter so I could secure a place to sleep that night.
The next segment of my trip is probably one of the scariest afternoons of my life.
A lot of the east coast of Taiwan was basically inaccessible until the early 1900s due to the mountains that go right to the coast. At some point, the Japanese were occupying Taiwan, and took it upon themselves to make the east coast easier to travel by building highways where it's nearly impossible to build highways. In particular, there is one stretch of highway that scares me, and to describe that I will quote the Lonely Planet, "...literally carved into sheer cliff walls...the highway twists its way around towering walls of marble and granite that loom over 1000m above the rocky seashore." I drove the first half of this through a torrential downpour (and later added this to a very short list of things I wouldn't do again if I had that chance).
As I reached my destination, Nan'ao, the rain let up ever so slightly. The manager at the campsite I went to thought I was so crazy that he didn't charge me for setting up my tent in the rain. I found a nice tree to sleep under, then got out of the rain and assessed my current situation.
Sorting through my belongings, I found that my cell phone charger, camera batteries and charger, flashlight, and toothbrush were 117 miles away from Nan'ao at the Surfer Inn. Fml.
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