Travel Destination: Agbokim Waterfall

Every story before I got here said the waterfall was in Ikom or close. “When you get to Ikom just take a bike.” Great!

So I told the friend acting as a guide we should just get a bike. Dude looked up to the clouds and said “rain dey up”, “let’s take a cab instead.”

Side note: whatever you do, don’t take a bike. Get a cab. The problem with this advice though is as I said in my previous posts on Obudu, they like picnic vans in this part of the country. These cabs usually carry 9 passengers minus the driver, so they usually want a lot of money for charter trips.

We managed to hire a cab for my friend to drive. This cab had so many problems that this post would be really long if I had to mention them. My friend was driving, so the driver that knew about these problems we’d left in Ikom.

We left Ikom just before 5pm for Agbokim. A few miles into our trip, the rain up there came down. The road was bad. Although I’ve seen worse roads, the rain made it impossible for us to see more than 10ft ahead, so the journey became really slow. The owner of the car told us how to work the lights without letting us know one of the lights wasn’t working. He showed us how to work the windows too without mentioning that one of the windows had a problem. Now there are several blind GSM spots from Ikom to Agbokim. In the rain, we were trying to close the front passenger window but couldn’t. There was no network so we couldn’t call the driver either, and this rain was not playing nice. Luckily a few miles in, we got a signal and called the owner and asked how he closes the window. Dude just said he doesn’t, there was no glass in the door.

We got to the fall at night. I got about three terrible photos and we decided to leave and try again the next day. The manager of the tourist centre then informed us that there was a better road back to town: The road through Ajaso. He left out the part about a turn leading to Cameroon though. Oh yes, we took that turn. Thank God there were still people on the road for us to ask if the road we were on led to Ikom. My first visit to Cameroon would have been because we took the wrong turn.

Thank God we even got to town safely. Our ride had one working headlight; good thing we had working fog lights. The car’s full-beam was terrible. It was like driving in the rain with no rain.

In addition to all these problems, the road at night was giving up ghosts as if it used to be a graveyard. I was later told it was the heat in the asphalt making the water evaporate thereby producing the mist.

Should you visit? Of course yes. It is beautiful. You won’t be disappointed. Get non-slippery shoes because of the steps and rocks. Depending on the time of the year, you might want footwear you can wade in the water with. They don’t take people across the stream during the peak of the rainy season when the 7 rivulets are flowing though.

I stayed at a hotel in Ikom but if you want to stay the night in Agbokim, the tourist centre has some rooms. You have to go with your beddings. They have a generator they put on at night. I had no time to see what the rooms look like. Also note that the only GSM network in the village is Glo. If you find your self making a call on your MTN mobile, you’re probably making an international call – ₦25/s.