I have to say that yesterday was absolutely amazing and will be in my memories as one of the best trip moments ever. My legs, hips, and back don’t really work anymore but holy crap I had so much fun.
Our tour guide, Peter, picked us up from our hostel at 7am sharp yesterday morning. We stopped by a small street food stall selling traditional Taiwanese breakfast foods. I was super happy because eating these things was on my list while we were in Taiwan.
Peter is from Holland and has lived in China, Nepal, Taiwan, and a bunch of other places I wish I’ve been to. He’s lived here in Hualien for about 4 years working with the owner of Hualien Outdoors.
The drive into Taroko Gorge National Park was a little over an hour. On our drive up we were a little worried about the cloud cover and that it may block the views at the top of the trail but we proceeded anyway.
We parked on the side of the road in the gorge and started walking to the trail head. There were already a number of buses with tourists snapping pictures on the side of the road at that time of the morning. Peter said that the Zhuilu Old Trail only allows about 90 people per day as it’s a narrow path towards the top.
We had to walk through Swallow Grotto to get to the beginning of the trail. It’s crazy to me that people did this by hand many many years ago.
Seeing the sides of the gorge was really interesting as you can see how the water scraped down the sides of the marble. At the peak of typhoon season, the river water will come all the way up to the road which is insane.
We started crossing the bridge into the forest and Joanna said “I hope there aren’t any spiders.”
Peter pointed off to the side of the bridge ” No venomous spiders in Taiwan, however, there’s a hive of giant hornets which are deadly. One of the native people died falling off the cliff trying to remove it. Also there are venomous snakes, but no spiders”
I just googled how big the giant hornets are…they’re pretty giant.
What was really awesome about the hike was that Peter explained so much about the history of Taiwan and the Japanese rule in the late 1800’s, how the native Taiwanese were driven out of the mountains, and he stopped us a few times to identify edible herbs and fruit. He handed us some leaves to smell and chew. The first one had a really wonderful aroma that smelled like Christmas. Joanna correctly guessed it to be cinnamon.
We had our doubts at the beginning of the hike because the stairs going up were so steep. The first half hour was incredibly tough but we kept up with Peter’s pace…or maybe he slowed down for us?
He heard some rustling in the forest and a few high pitched barks? Told us to stop and listen for it. There was a troop of monkeys right off the trail. It was really cool to see them so close to us as they were hiding in the trees observing us as we hiked past. I really wish I had a telephoto lens for these moments but there’s no way I’m lugging a 3lb zoom lens around.
Within half an hour the three of us shed our extra layers. Even though it was mid 50s you could feel the humidity in the air. A little after 1km the forest opened up and you could see the awesome view of the gorge.
Words can’t describe how amazing the view was and seeing mountains all around us was jaw dropping. Before every trip I pray that God gives me the opportunity to see his creations on this Earth. This is definitely one of them.
We had to be a little bit careful as the width of the trail along the cliff was about 4 ft across with a metal cable screwed into the side of the cliff wall. Peter told us a story of how Matt, his business partner, took a group on a hike and there was a father and son looking over the cliff whispering to each other. Later on they found out the dad had fallen and died. There’s suspicions that it was for insurance money.
Peter pointed out some glass shards that were stuck to the side of the cliff. Can you guess what these are for?
Scientists are expecting the boulder above to break off in the next 20 years. The glass helps estimate if there are any shifts in the rocks. I forgot to mention that usually people wear helmets when they come to Taroko Gorge. Many people have died with rocks falling on them. Since there hasn’t been any heavy rain lately, we were ok but still had to be aware.
At the end of the trail, there was a small forested area where we stopped and took a break for a snack. Peter brought fresh fruit, nuts, and eggs for us to share. This was another highlight of the day as he introduced us to a few fruits that I’ve never heard of before. There was honey passion fruit which was slightly tart, sweet, and slimy. Taiwanese wax apple which was crisp and sweet like a Fuji apple. And jujubes which had a crunch like an apple but tasted like a pear. I forgot to take a picture because I was distracted with how tasty it was, but it’s the green one on the left. I had to take a pee break so he pointed me into the direction of the woods next to a monument where 2 Japanese soldiers were beheaded.
It took about 45 min to make it back down the trail. The elevation from where we started in Swallow Grotto was 900 feet above sea level to the top of Zhuilu Old Trail at Jhuilu Cliff at 3608 ft above sea level. Total distance distance of about 3.85 miles round trip. My fitbit said 19,000 steps and 8.something miles, maybe my steps are just tiny? (Feel free to correct my numbers).
We got back to the car and Peter gave us the option of either going to the hot springs or driving around the gorge looking at different views of the area. At this point our legs were shaking just standing in place so we opted for the hot springs thinking it would be easy to get to.
So the story behind these hot springs is that about 20 years ago a company wanted to capitalize on the natural hot springs that come out of the gorge. They built a trail, steps to get down to the river, and pools that collected the hot water. Unfortunately, they didn’t know anything about how badly the typhoons change the landscape. One person in the hot springs was crushed by a falling rock and the rushing water and debris made it almost impossible to upkeep the area so it was abandoned 15 years ago.
To get here, we had to do more hiking down the gorge, cross a bridge, climb over a “Do Not Enter” fence, and walk down some worn away steps that were almost flat with no guard rail. Pretty legit.
Joanna’s phone automatically made this awesome cinemagraph of me while she was taking my picture. We both highly HIGHLY recommend the Pixel 2 if you’re shopping for a phone.
The water was over 115f which was so burning hot and smelled like eggs. I couldn’t stay in there for very long, Joanna only dipped her feet in the water.
A group of people came into the hot spring pool with us. I asked one of the guys where he was from and he said Panama. I said, no way! and started speaking to him in Spanish. He didn’t believe it because he asked why my Spanish has an accent haha…I mean jaja
I didn’t realize that the water in the river mixed with the hot spring water and so it was quite warm but by that time I was already back in my regular clothes. Peter had prepared a nice simple lunch for us when we got out of the hot spring area. There was bread that He made from scratch before he picked us up, soft cheese, fruit, and high mountain tea which can only be found in Taiwan.
It started to rain slightly so we made our way back up the “steps” and back to the car. Peter dropped us back off at the hostel around 6. We are both so grateful for the experience. He was an amazing tour guide and just a joy to be with. If anyone is going to be in Taiwan, I highly recommend making a trip out to Hualien and booking a day with his company http://www.hualienoutdoors.org. The cost was about $120 per person which included transportation, breakfast, lunch, snack, and great company.
Instead of going back to the hostel right away we stopped at a small dumpling restaurant for dinner. We kind of got carried away with how hungry we were but 40 dumplings seemed like the right amount at the moment we were ordering. We ordered pork and onions, pork and green beans and pork and shrimp. The ones with shrimp were my favorite.
Went back to the room after dinner, showered, and passed out at 8pm. I woke up at 4am and started working on this blog post. It’s 8am now (yah this blog took almost 4 hours to do), we’re going to pack up and get train tickets to head back to Taipei later this morning.
