Jump in the waterfall, it's REALLY safe!

Leaving Saskatoon to go to Thunder Bay was a slightly sad experience. It had been absolutely fantastic to see Stu and hang out for a week or so. Also, meeting Amanda and Andrew was great! Arriving into Thunder Bay after 20 hours on a bus was... Interesting. The cab driver at the Greyhound station insisted that the place we were going did not exist. "Do you wanna stay at the Super 8 motel?" "No, please take us where we asked to go" "Ok, but I'm pretty sure you want the Super 8, Machar St is pretty sleazy" "Please, just take us to this address" "Ok". Right, so we arrive at the hostel, open the door and we're greeted directly by the owner! They must have known that we were pretty important. Lovely lady, more of a converted house than hostel, but the welcome was sensational. So we settle in, decide to go shopping for some food (side note, it's pissing down with rain). So we head out, find the the local supermarket is shut due to lightning strike and power outage. No problem. Head back, get changed for a nice pub dinner, lock the room, asking for a key on our return. We stumbled on why the cabbie told us Machar street was a bit sleazy.

Sleazy Street

About four porno stores, less than a two minute walk away. Sarah was in heaven. They had private "viewing" rooms in them too apparently. I know if I open a porno store, that is going to be in BOLD print on my sign. Sadly the pub was full, so we walked, bought our staples (bacon and eggs) and headed back to the hostel. The nice hostel owner then informed us that she was unable to locate a key for our room. Which was locked. I managed to find the key, un-marked on a coffee table next to the sofa. Weird. So after a pretty hectic/weird day we retired for the evening. Although we were invited to the farmer's market in the morning we didn't go (I thought Sarah would try and sell me to a farmer).

We did however take up the invitation to go to the falls and river with the hostel owner. "You can jump in, it's really safe" was what we were told. The falls however look like this:

Jump in this... yeah... right

and the water was pretty high. Neither Sarah or I were game, although seeing as Sarah hasn't tried to murder me recently, I guess she egged me on a bit. Now, this wasn't exactly the kind of place that everyone gets to visit in Thunder Bay. We had to trespass, lead by the hostel owner and we had to park the mini-van in some out of the way dirt road and put the hazard lights on. So seeing as we'd gone to all that effort, we weren't leaving without someone jumping into the waterfall. Of that much we were fairly certain. Carlos, the awesome Spanish dude we met at the hostel was going to be the one that took up the challenge.

Brave Spanish Carlos

And just to give you some perspective of the size of these falls:

Clever guy

This is one of five locals jumping in to the wash from about 5 meters. Crazy.

Look at my "piece" (not really ;) )

We were lucky enough to get taken to another locals only swimming place by our intrepid hostel owning guide. It was pretty awesome there too, although there were no falls. There was however a nice rocky outcrop to jump off! Brilliant! Another local who happened to be there showed us how to climb up and generally jump off logs etc. Don't worry Mum, I was very careful, and I'm pretty sure my travel insurance covers falling off cliffs that were climbed for the purpose of jumping! It's fine!

Post days excitement, we headed to the Greyhound station and waited for the bus. I think I had the misfortune of eating the worst hotdog on earth. No photos sadly, but trust me, it was horrid. Our all too short time in Thunder bay ended, but the excitement was not over yet. The Police arrive at the bus station, I was worried they'd find out about that key of "H" that Sarah is smuggling for the cartels, but it turned out they were dropping off Big Ted and his accomplice from certain crimes committed in Thunder Bay. The nice policeman wouldn't leave until he saw the crooks get on the Bus with us. This made me a little uneasy at first, but I didn't catch either of them trying to half inch any of my stuff during the bus ride.

Everyone can afford the Greyhound, even Big Ted

On to Toronto

written by

haveyouseenmypassport on June 18, 2007 from Thunder Bay, Canada

from the travel blog: To infinity!.. and... beyond... uh.....

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Upon looking at a Waterfall like that, you can't help but think of the FIRST person to jump in.

Clearly they entered the water without the intention of surviving (ie. an emo) and would have been devastated when they resurfaced. "Oh shit... *cry*"

Or they were thrown in by a pack of mobsters where the intention of the mobsters was for them to not resurface.
"hahha... cop that mobsters, it's actually really safe *flips bird*"
"oh, shit. should have put concrete boots on as well".

Bottom line, you're a girls dick for not jumping in yourself.

written by Benny Fuckin Carland on June 18, 2007

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