8 HOURS IN ERIH-IJESHA

2014 was a lovely year, the start of the year was more lovely than the past years, organized, fun filled and very promising, giving a deep sign of how the end will be more lovely, the unanimous decision to visit the Erin-ijesha waterfall rapped it fully, the dream of visiting the legendary waterfall have been something inevitable for me, I can imagine myself being under a naturally falling pool with my clothes and how I will make sure my Facebook, instagram tired when I start saving my album on their database.
The D day is here, the trip is set, the general Jollof is ready, the hope is high, everyone out in their flying colors, people in different colonies, friends gather to discuss how it would be over there, I can see a lot of people keeping their underwear in their bags, The music policy and coordinator is ready with his machines and all I have in my mind is that this will be my best offline visitation to an historic location. The bus is set and we are moving over from Akure in 30mins time, we were gathered together and educated about the place we were going to, the conduct, the lifestyle and what we should never do, so after the advice and warning, there were few introductions between everyone, so the trip will be a one family trip and will not be that boring.

We left Akure just about 9:30am, my departmental mates were wonderful people, I don’t even know where the sound of drums came from, I was just hearing the bass of well-structured rhythm, so I followed up and in not more than 3 minutes everyone was in the spirit as we all use our heads to dance along with the gyration songs, then I can see the presence of unionist in the Bus. From the start I know this will be my best and in no long time, the fact is coming out, I began to feel the world from a good end and I believe the start will just be the tip of an iceberg considering where we are going to, we pass through a lot of check points and immediately we sight a checkpoint just about a meter away, the sound of our aluta music rose to the top, there is this song we came up with “Police you cannot shot me, hiohiohio, I no be Arm robber hiohiohio”, that was our anthem at all check points, and truly we were not stopped at all. 1 hour to the trip we entered the historic town of Erin Ijehsa, and we were told that in 5mins, the preferred destination will be right in front of us.
The hill is right in front of us, I was a bit disappointed with what I saw, the bushy surroundings with different size of dirt ranging from water sachet to plastic bottles, the ludicrous 19th century gate, and the in ability to different he workers over there from the commoners, the disappointment came also from the fact that, Google have shown me a lot of pictures abroad with more beautiful pictures, but at the end of it all I summon courage and hope it will be all be fun at last but I’d hope the Osun state government have spent more on it as it can be a source of natural income to the state. We approached the gate to pay for our Adventure and after payment we were allowed to enter to enter. Sellers of different materials came to meet us, people with slippers, hair coverings, palm wine sellers hoping from their huts and also bush meat sellers moving around us for those who can feel the aroma and would love to buy.


Way up we set for the steps and we were on our way to the real matter of the day, the sound of irregular noise gave us a sign that we are very close to the fall, the movement of water under small bridges filled my heart and the happiness in me was immeasurable, there were movements of rodents, birds, people carrying the music instruments were coming at my back, it was not easy for them so I decided to help with the woofer to ease th3e load on them, now we are at the water fall, we got to the waterfall all in happiness, as we were told we will be in 7 steps before the end of our trip and this being the first step really raised my anxiety about the adventure. we set the music policy up and someone put on the generator to power it, it was lovely, I mean very lovely with the sound of music from 9ice starting, some stayed with the music , while some were changing their dresses, some are already in the water enjoying their lifetime, while some are up to the second step, I joined them in the water and it was an interesting moment, after about 5mins, I moved to the second step also, but to my surprise the population there is even more than the pollution in the first step, The movement from the first to the second level was easy as we moved on staircase.
Moving to step 3, there were few people there and this was caused by the difficulty in climbing up, getting to the third step is like moving down the Sahara, it was characterized by threes which will help in movement and any fall from there could actually lead to death, but with the kind of determination I had, I was among the few people that move up to that step, getting to that step was a dream for me and

I really love the water there as it was specifically cool and lovely, we were just about 10 there o there was no much “felabrity” up there as I left with two of my friends, a male and a female to advance to other steps, but on getting to the top we knew we can never see anything again because of the terrain we saw, there was a vast length of land, so we continued the adventure and after about 10mins walk we saw a man carrying a basket and held a cutlass with his right hand going in front of us, we were initially scared, till he approached “You are coming from Erin? He asked, and we replied with the movement of our head which signals yes, and he said “You are now in Ekiti”, we were wowed and very happy, because we never imagined that we can just have a 10mins walk over the waterfall to Ekiti, so we continued our journey to imagine how ekiti looked like, and after a few minutes we were hearing some voices and people talking in the language w understood, little children shouting and elders beating their irons, we saw an old building and actually we can see a village, characterized with farmers, old buildings, old people and no big shop where we can get water to drink, we hide our thirst as we saw familiar names on walls to signal that people we knew have been here before, we input our names on the wall too to signal our presence here for future generations, we were approached by a woman who said are you going to the river, .
I mean they actually knew what we need to say and things that would make our trip more memorable. She showed us to the source of the water and it was actually a slow moving where local people get their daily supply, we touched it and took some pictures of the river as we headed back to our base, the time is fast moving and hunger is setting in, so we took a walk back, and as we move over the rocks, we put our names on the rocks to inform anyone coming that we have been here before, it was a lovely trip as we got back to the base at about 5pm, this achievement will live strongly in my heart and I will never forget it, as we entered the base, we shared the sweet story of our adventure in adventure with them, some really felt sad we never inform them and some said they will by their next visitation here, we met our jollof down here and we took our meal and followed it up with palm wine. The time is up, the night bed s are singing, it’s time to go home as a Boss, I mean as someone fulfilled, we left as a champion as we headed to our Bus and left for Akure.
That was my visit to Erin-ijesha.

Read and enjoy

Nice write up, have been there but the government really needs to work on that place. it's too dangerous, the steps are soo small and slippery with hardly anything to hold while climbing and the last step is the worst of all, I had to climb rocks till I got down and same back. If any1 miss calculates while returning it's bye gone, I swore I will never go there again, it's too risky but the waterfall is a beautiful site to behold.

nifeseun:
Nice write up, have been there but the government really needs to work on that place. it's too dangerous, the steps are soo small and slippery with hardly anything to hold while climbing and the last step is the worst of all, I had to climb rocks till I got down and same back. If any1 miss calculates while returning it's bye gone, I swore I will never go there again, it's too risky but the waterfall is a beautiful site to behold.

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Yes, thanks for reading, I really hope the government of that state see that place as a source of natural income, because it's a place of good construction naturally and the view is good to the eye, just that it is dangerous in climbing and coming down. except one is radically radical. it's not easy to clone. the steps are too small and always slippery

No pics

I will follow up with some pictures soon