There's only so much information that you can find on pages that try to uncover the top hidden places in Bali. And even though such web pages often mention the hidden canyon in Sukawati, they don't tell you how hard a hike it is. Nor will they say it takes over three hours and requires preparation upfront.

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We have traveled to many places in Bali already, but there are still many natural wonders that are worth visiting. And as usual, I'm the tour planner for today. My original plan was to go visit six beautiful places in central Bali, but after considering the time frame (i.e., one day), I became less optimistic. We reduced it to four, and together with Kezia (an Indonesian volunteer) and two Irish girls Lianne and Laura (my co-teacher), we were mentally ready for the trip.

What we didn't know, however, was how little prepared for the trip we were. Our first stop was a hidden canyon in Sukawati, an amazingly well-kept secret with an adequate name, and even though I read that sometimes you might need to go through waist-deep water, I didn't think the hike would be so wild. And thus we just took our bikinis, beach clothing, flip flops, cameras, and one dry bag for the whole group, thinking we would be fine as is. 

As we arrive at the entrance gate and purchase ridiculously cheap tickets, they tell us to leave our flip-flops there, as it can get slippery down there. I didn't think much of it and expected the path through the canyon to be suitable for bare feet. We also leave our clothing behind and start our hike in bikinis and one bag. We descend a long concrete staircase and I'm being hopeful that the whole way may be paved similarly. But as soon as the staircase ends, we find ourselves in true wilderness, with steep cliffs around us, rocky shores, and a wild river with strong currents. The water is muddy and wild because of the raging thunderstorm the previous day, and even though we didn't even start the hike properly, it already comes to our thighs.

We haven't even started the hike properly, and it's already quite painful. We climb the slippery rocks, plow through mud and walk on small itchy grains of sand - and, primarily, conquer the strong stream in the river through sharp rocks at the bottom. "Dana, what have you gotten us into?" I hear one of the girls say laughingly behind me, and I am sure she is trying to mask the slight anger and fear in her voice.

Painful steps aside, the hike itself is not the easiest. Already right at the beginning, I managed to get myself into a little accident. As I try to climb a big rock surrounded by the river, I feel my hands slipping and I slide off the rock, falling right into the brown river in an unsightly water bomb. The guide hurried to rescue me, but I was just laughing at my clumsiness and was already climbing from the water like nothing happened.

Regaining my peace at Canyon II

The Sukawati canyon is divided into three parts - simply called Canyon I, II, and III - and we get to the first one in less than an hour. It's not only time to take pictures, but to make a decision whether to climb the hill and end our tour on the viewing point or to continue to Canyons II and III and thus make the whole loop. Still enthusiastic, the group unanimously decides to go forward.

A little moment of relief after reaching the Canyon II

After we take three million photos on all our phones and cameras, the guide tells us that Canyon III is just around the corner. Tired from the hike already, the whole group cheers – an enthusiasm that disappeared soon after. 

We are standing in front of a two-meter tall cliff on one of the river banks. It has a very smooth surface, with little to no cracks to hold on to when you're climbing. Like it is no big deal, the guide makes three quick movements and is already at the top. 

"No way, I'm not doing this," I say to the guide, who's just laughing. Questioning my whole life at this point, I tried to catch the last straw. "Can we go through there instead?" I pointed to the little stream of the river which surrounds the cliff and leads to the Canyon III. "He says it's too deep and the current is strong," Kezia, our hero for today, who has been translating the whole time, says with a hint of disappointment in her voice.

The guide keeps extending his arm down towards me with a smile. The cliff is so high that I can barely reach his hand, and I am sure there is no way I can climb it. But at this point there is nothing else to do, so I take his hand, trying to cooperate, but deep down knowing I will never manage to climb this cliff. I put my feet to the places he tells me and I am still unsure where to hold on to with my other hand. I feel him pull me a little and I expect him to fall down from up there due to the weight of my body, but I don't even realize how and I am standing next to him on the cliff.

I was totally confused about what just happened. Just to paint an image, our guide, like most of Indonesian men, was really short and generally quite skinny.  But he got some real power in his as I watched him pull up all of the other girls without any real help from the bunch. At this point, the fear I had seemed to have been for nothing; the scariest moment of the hike turned out to be pretty painless.

And so we got to the last canyon. We left the wild river behind and got into a rainforest with a nice forest trail. Finally, the path is soft, and the wet soil of the rain forest soothes our feet. As we progress, long vertical tree roots extending down from a couple-meters-tall hill appear before us. The guide starts climbing the roots and we realize it's a fun picture spot, and take turns jumping on the roots like monkeys. When we thought that the difficult part of the tour is over, we were in for another surprise.

So far, we have always had to walk in the shadows of the canyon or the forest, but in order to get back to our car, we had to walk through some fields with a little concrete path in the middle of them. It was 1 pm, the sun was shining strongly, and remember – we were barefoot. Walking on the field itself was not much better, since not only was the soil almost just as hot as the concrete but stepping on the dead roots was extremely painful too.

Walking on the concrete was the most painful thing of the day. Our bare feet felt more and more burnt with each step, and as we screamed in pain, our guide just laughed at us. Kezia, the Indonesian volunteer, who we thought might also be used to the heat and feel no discomfort just like the guide, told to us annoyingly that she, too, is a "city girl" just like us, and joined the screams.

"Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ooooouuuuch..."

We screamed continuously. Each one of us became very nifty and tried to alleviate their pain differently. I tried to carefully walk on the soil; Lianne was trying to make shoes from leaves; and Kezia decided to run on the hot concrete as if her life was at stake – only to jump to the field every now and then to cool her feet in the tiny shadow cast by the extremely sparse almost-withered plants. 

Finally, we arrived at the parking lot, sat down and lifted our feet in relief. We ordered fresh coconuts as a reward, while our guide was getting our shoes from the entrance where we left them. The feeling of being seated with our feet off the floor was absolutely priceless.

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It was already 3 pm when we arrived at the second spot – so much for my impeccable planning. Tekad Cepung waterfall is a rather unique place. The waterfall is located inside a tall cave with shallow water. We again had to climb down some big rocks, but after our adventure this morning – and with our shoes on this time – the hike felt really easy. And despite my quixotic battle with little drops constantly being sprayed on my camera from the waterfall, I managed to take some nice shots.

Tekad Cepung Waterfall

The rest of the day could very well be described as a fiasco. We never found the green cliffs in the waterfall's vicinity that I had originally planned on our itinerary. The beautiful rainbow canyon that I saw online had been closed already for several years. And the waterfall that we planned to see as the last point of the trip didn't exist anymore, as the government had reversed the flow of the water for sewage regulation, as explained by a local man from the area. So when we finally managed to find the entrance to the waterfall (after first being lost and worrying about the sun going down), climbed all the way down, and searched for it there, we could only laugh at our 'luck'.