TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - I was heading to Probolinggo from Yogyakarta when I stopped at Bangil town, Pasuruan, East java and had the opportunity to taste the town’s punel rice.Punel rice is the distinctive dish of Bangil which is consisting of seasoned vegetables, bamboo shoot, and seasoned kikil beef tendon) called klomotan. It served with sambal consisting of long bean sliced in thin pieces. A portion of punel rice priced at around Rp10,000 to Rp20,000.

My destination this time is the Madakaripura waterfall located in Sapih Village, Lumbang District, Probolinggo regency, East Java. I went with seven people from Yogyakarta and more people joined us on our way.

We got on a small bus in Surabaya and entered Sapih Village three hours later. The road on the hills started to get bumpy with many turning points. Sometimes my eyes caught a scene of deep canyon below. Approaching the waterfall location, the road became narrower and finally the bus was unable to climb the steeping road and stopped at a turning point. We had to come off the bus and helped to move the bus using big wooden blocks.

The bus started to move again and we got back into it to continue our journey.

I have prepared everything for this trip and I felt that I am ready for the adventure. In addition to the trekking shoes, I also brought my mountain sandals to be used on wet environment like on the waterfall.

When we arrived on the parking area, a giant statue of Mahapatih Gajah Mada, greeted us. The Mahapatih sat cross-legged with his arm folded on his chest. His eyes gave impression that he was watching all of the visitors. The statue was built by the local Tourism Agency to emphasize the legend that says the location was the place where the ancient military general of Majapahit Empire spent the rest of his life in seclusion and disappeared.

Madakaripura is located within the Bromo-Tengger-Semeru National Park and the waterfall is unique for its recess surrounded by higher grounds that drop the water on its entire cliff.

We continued the journey on foot and the adventure begun. We had to cross a river with heavy current. Some men in our group took initiative to cross the river first so they could help the other by reaching out their hands.

When we are crossing he river, several young men that we believed to be local people were approaching us in rush. They insisted that we had to use their service as a local guide although we already have a guide in our group.

“Unfortunately, that is the typical of Madakaripura. There are thugs, especially local residents. They offer services like guide, parking, and vehicle washing, by force,” said Agus.

We finally had to take them with us to avoid further hassles. One of them helped us to cross the river while carrying our snack bags.

Crossing the river was not the only challenge we encountered during our journey. We had to go into the river and walked against the current to avoid the canyons on our sides.

Finally, I could see a waterfall from afar. Some part of the water fell heavily while in other part the water fell just like a mist. We arrived at the first waterfall one hour later. This was not our final destination but we had to walked pass it to reach the Madakaripura waterfall. The waterfall made the so-called an ‘eternal rainfall’ and everyone who passes it will get wet.

We also passed by the cave where Gajah Mada spent the rest on his life in seclusion. In about 30 minutes, we arrived at our final destination. I spent a moment to let myself stared on the wonder around me. The upright cliffs on both sides have joined to form giant half circle wall, remind me of a giant well.

The recess on the wall was about five meters in size. I could not peek into the recess since it was pretty far from my position. There was, the legend says, the place where Gajah Mada disappeared and never come back. The water fell into a large pond having depth up to 7 meters and large up to 25 meters. None of us took a swim on the pond since the pond water was brownish and turbid.

We ended the adventure when the sun started wove westward and we walked our way back through the same route from which we came from. Some street vendors appeared on our way back and a cup of coffee plus fries were too tempting to be ignored.

PITO AGUSTIN RUDIANA