Taroko

Shortly after arriving to Taiwan, somebody told me that if I had to visit some place in the island, I had to go to Taroko Gorge, which is considered the crown jewel of the natural parks of the country. But more than a year has gone by before I could go. Finally, last weekend, I went there with two riends of mine that are visiting me and other post-docs of the IAA.

We left early in the morning from Taipei in a train that took us to Hualien, where a guide picked us up and went with us for most of Saturday and Sunday. Taroko is a gorge with a narrow river that runs along at the bottom, between very high walls, most of them covered in green.


The rocks are mostly marble and there are many waterfalls


It is certainly a very beautiful place, with innumerable trails to walk on. We did some of the most typical ones, I guess, as the Tunnel of Nine Turns,


where we had to wear a helmet due to the risk of falling rocks —as I could tell when a couple of small size rocks fell 5-10 meters from me; a walk along the Baiyang Trail, and all its many tunnels,


until we reached a spectacular waterfall, maybe not because of its height, but because of the amount of water,

even if we could see two waterfalls more from there;

an illegal swim in the Shakadang Trail


and crossing hanging bridges.

On Sunday afternoon, we ended up in the beach, where we went for a short swim in the warm waters of the Pacific Ocean.

The weather was fairly good most of the time, except in the evening of both days, and despite the heat, I had a good time. Of course, we also could see many small critters


(many big spiders, too)

and little flowers or colourful leaves in the park, which is always nice.





It looks as if I was re-connecting with nature, uh?