Hello lovelies. How have you been? Having a productive week I guess? I remember to have mentioned in my last post that I was starting my penultimate finals and that explains the reason for my absence. Now that exams are done, lets get back to business. By the way, I miss interacting with you all.
If you’ve been following my social media posts -@themodestgirlslay IG; @tranquility_4u twitter, since sometime in the month of July till date, I kept ranting on “travel and explore, life has more than what you’ve seen”, personally I drafted out plans and places to be visited in the month of August just after my exams and which is the reason why we have a guest post from a traveller just like myself. The first of the travels was the trip to Oowu falls in kwara state.
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“We must go beyond textbooks, go out into the bypaths and untrodden depths of the wilderness and travel and explore and tell the world the glories of our journey.” – John Hope Franklin.
It is in this thirst for quest, exploration and glory that I leave the leafs of my books to pack my bag and boot, kitted to the teeth, and journey into the wild arms of the world with friends.
The journey from Ilorin, the Kwara state capital, to our destination was well over 100km and every bit of the journey was worth the money. Our destination was supposedly Òwù waterfalls somewhere in Ìsín Local Government Area of Kwara state, but Martin Buber was right to have mentioned that “All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveller is unaware;” as we would find out much later that Òwù ìsín is a much different location, of about 20km distance from Ọwá in Ifelodun LGA that accommodates Óówù falls.
If Nigeria were to have a change of motto, the only befitting novel motto would be “Hospitability is our business,” because it really is. A couple of times we could have gone missing in the wild, fallen into the wrong pit, delved into the wrong holes without a proper tour guide, but we were able to navigate our ways through to the falls, courtesy of the help we received from natives, with a special mention of the King of Ọwá Onire, who did not only educate us about Óówù falls, but was accommodating while giving a brief history of the town itself.
The falls was about 12km from the King’s palace, or any civilization so to say, with an unending forestation waving at passers-by as we carried on our journey on the untarred, rocky, and interesting road to the falls. After about an hour of hills and bottoms, flats and rocks, mud and cakes on the motorcycles that charioted us, we arrived at Óówù falls.
The falls are totally hidden from plane sight, covered by lush vegetation away from ever interfering hands of men. Acclaimed to be one of the highest water falls in West Africa, the over 330ft height of Óówù is a wonder that wets the eyes. The falls pour from a skull at the top of the walls that houses it, and with strong gravitational fall, rains into a small lake that sips away very slowly from the foot of the falls.
The scenery is made more beautiful when viewed while it is sunny, as the rays of the sun refract to give visible rainbows to the rocks and lake at the foot of the falls. Another beautiful thing about Óówù is that the speed with which the water drops can be accelerated by the voice of a tourist. The water follows an echo pattern on the walls of the fall and when a person shouts, the falls come in that direction with accelerated speed.
American writer, Susan Sontag wasn’t wrong to have said “Travel becomes a strategy for accumulating photographs, ” as we soon went on a photograph taking spree; enhanced by the very beautiful background which the falls provides. In what seemed like forever, we immersed ourselves into the falls and let the cold water wash off the tension and anxiety that built up on our way to the location. About an hour later, and we were soon back to the King of Ọwá’s Palace, where we signed out on a log book, and made a paltry donation to the maintenance of the tourist centre.
As much beauty and potential as the location holds, it is sad business that ‘governments’ in Nigeria pay very little attention to these very important things that may be good revenue boosters for our economies. The road to the falls was in a very terrible state & I wasn’t totally shocked when one of the motorcycles in our convoy went off balance and threw off its occupants, mildly injuring one of my friends. A place as beautiful as Oowu would be great for generating funds if there was better road networking, proper management, and a professional publicity to its image. Sadly, Oowu isn’t the only place suffering from this in Nigeria, as most other tourist centres are too. Someday we hope the government is able to understand the Country better and be able to develop it in brighter shades of green and white. As citizens we also have roles to play in the development of our societies alongside the government, and we shouldn’t hesitate in doing such duties. May nature never abandon us.
“Life is short and the older you get, the more you feel it. Indeed, the shorter it is. People lose their capacity to walk, run, travel, think, and experience life. I realise how important it is to use the time I have.” — Viggo Mortensen. Travel and see the world, live and have fun, meet people and cultures, while you still can. You only live once.
About the writer:
Akinyemi ‘Princely X’ Adedeji is an award-winning writer, an enthusiastic traveller, a lover of nature and of cats especially, and a published author on many platforms. His first commercial effort as a writer, BROKEN ARROWS — a collection of short stories — was released in 2017. He can be reached on social media platforms thus; Fb— Akinyemi Princely X Adedeji, Twitter; @theprincelyx, Ig: @Princely_X. Importantly, he loses all home training on the sight of Jollof.
Sakinah.o 