Trip to Erin Ijesha waterfall
2mins read
God knows that for a really long time, I have been wanting to travel to one of the most visited tourist site in Nigeria “Erin ijesha waterfall”
Finally, I planned this trip with my friend Victor Onugha, who is a photographer. Something was always coming up, so we kept on postponing this trip till Saturday 17th of April, 2018.
Honestly I was going to postpone again because I had injured the previous day during my kick boxing training. I had injured my foot and from research done about the tourist site, I had a lot of climbing to do.
Erin Ijesha waterfall is one of Nigeria’s most visited tourist site located in Osun state. The waterfall was named after the town it is located in “Erin Ijesha” and also called Olumirin waterfall.
What does Erin Ijesha mean? Being a very inquisitive person , I asked most of the elderly people I came in contact with in Osun state but they were all saying “Erin” means Elephant and “Ijesha” is a type of Yoruba dialect. So combining the two doesn’t make so much sense. Okay!!
I embarked on this trip with Victor and Atinuke “two love birds” (felt like I was third wheeling) We left Magodo estate at 8:25am to Ojota bus park to board a bus to Ilesa, which cost about 1550naira each. The wait wasn’t so much till the bus filled up and ready to move. Thanks to The lady that preached the Gospel and prayed for a safe trip for us. By the way, she prayed for me singularly that I will be a preacher of the word of God. I sure said Amen
The bus got filled in no time and we drove off. The driver was so boring, he didn’t even had a stereo to play music or listen to those lovely lyrically structured Yoruba songs that gets you spraying dollars in Lagos parties popularly known as “Owambe”
It was about a 4 hours journey to Ilesa where we met this super amazing cab driver I called “Baba Ilesa” who took us to Erin Ijesha waterfall for a sum of 2000naira. We finally got to Erin Ijesha waterfall. The road to the waterfall was quite terrible but there were construction workers presently working on it, So hopefully that will be rectified in no time. We had to get Baba Ilesa to wait for us till we were done at the waterfall because there were no readily available cabs or buses to take you to your destination after the beautiful tour. So we bargained with Baba and came to an agreement to pay him 6000naira and we didn’t regret this as it started raining heavily before we left the waterfall. He paid for car park which cost 200naira.
At the entrance to the waterfall, we paid a gate fee of 500naira. Also, there is a mandatory fee of 500naira for those with cameras, so we paid for that as well. After registering our tickets, the climb began!!
There are about 78 steps to the second level which we successfully conquered. The stairs have no railings and could be very dangerous cause they were really steep. After the second level, there are no steps so you have to use the root of trees to climb. We did this for a while until we heard that there was no water at level 3 or it not as beautiful as level 2 waterfall so we went back down because we had no time to explore so much since we needed to shoot.
After about 2hrs of shooting,it was time to head back to the bus park in Ilesa to board a bus to their capital city “Oshogbo” it was about an hour and half journey to Oshogbo and it cost 600 naira. During the trip to Oshogbo, I checked Hotels.ng to find good hotels in Oshogbo and affordable. I found Royal spring Hotel and we went to the hotel and checked in
Day 2
It was a beautiful and peaceful night, woke up pretty early and I watched this really funny Yoruba movie that was showing. So funny how after I checked out at 11am, the movie was still showing (plix is it big brother yoruba?)
Week headed to Nike Art gallery to see some art works. We had the opportunity to see how the popular yoruba attire “Adire” was being manufactured. I was so astonished at how the patterns were created. I will definitely like to try that out sometime. After the visit to Nike’s Art Gallery, we headed to where we can board a bus back to lagos and Ibadan.
I will advice you to go with atleast 15,000naira to have a great time at Erin Ijesha waterfalls.
Items to carry for this trip: Towel, shower caps for ladies, slippers or hiking shoes, face cap, change of clothing.
click here to watch a short video of my trip to Erin Ijesha waterfalls.
I embarked on another trip to Ibadan.
Watch out for my short story on my trip to Ibadan, Oyo state, Nigeria
A TRIP TO ERIN IJESHA WATERFALLS Trip to Erin Ijesha waterfall 2mins read God knows that for a really long time, I have been wanting to travel to one of the most visited tourist site in Nigeria "Erin ijesha waterfall"
