Rapids of Jur-Jur. A natural pool that washes away all the sins.
Apparently, what’s considered extreme travel everywhere else is just a casual stroll in the park for Crimea’s tour guides and the unsuspecting Russians/Ukrainians they manage to lure in.
My two guide-assisted ascents to mountain waterfalls – on the same day, no less! – made parts of my solo hike to Czar’s Beach seem positively tame (ok, not the “hugging the side of the mountain while standing on a cliff above the sea” part,” but pretty much all other parts).
A couple of kilometers each way, with elevation gain of a couple hundred meters each time. The whole way there and back you are trying not to trip on the gnarly exposed roots, which just five minutes later you are using to pull yourself up an unstable slope. This is fun, you guys!
And while I am swearing and sweating my butt off in yoga pants and sneakers, the proper young Russkie and Ukie ladies around me are prancing around in denim short-shorts, bedazzled tank-tops and strappy sandals, waist-length hair swinging freely around them like it’s a shampoo commercial.
I wanted to kill those bitches.
And that was BEFORE they started they non-stop whining about how difficult the track was. And why couldn’t we take a break, and why can’t they have a smoke, and OMG why aren’t there any cafes along the way?!
SERIOUSLY, people – we are up on a mountain slope in the middle of a friggin’ forest! STFU!
Miraculously, all this whining didn’t prevent them from being the first at every scenic stop in order to usurp it with a 15-minute photo-session – of themselves.
I wanted to kill those bitches.
Oh yeah, the waterfalls. They were pretty great. Jur-Jur (“Water-Water” in Armenian) is the most abundant waterfall in Crimea. It is preceded, upstream, by very beautiful rapids that form three magical pools in the mountains. The once closest to the waterfall washes away all your sins. The next one up is the basin of eternal love. And the top one is the pool of eternal youth. Unlike the two lower pool, you can’t just waddle in in pursuit of firm body parts and wrinkle-free skin. No, you have to crawl over a slippery rock formation and tumble into the freezing waters of this natural well that happens to be more than 6 feet deep. Unless you want to risk jumping off the wall of rocks above it without breaking your legs. THEN you have to pull yourself up on those same slippery rocks and tumble back over them on the way back to shore.
Of COURSE I went in. #adventure #betterthanbotox
Pool of eternal youth at Jur-Jur. The well into which you must jump is toward the top-right corner, partially hidden by the rocks.
The second waterfall, Suv Ucqan in the Red Canyon, had no magical powers but even more treacherous trails, if you could even call them that. We did whatever we could not to fall. Still, some of us fell, but almost nobody complained, including the senior citizens and tykes on this hike, except for – you guessed it – Those Bitches.
And then the rain started.
Home & Away 
Oh, oh, oh…. slippery rocks 😦 And no café! 😦 😦
Not slippery enough…
Many gorgeous shots here. 🙂 Thank you so much for sharing!
You are welcome 🙂
That’s too bad about the bitches. Perhaps you were supposed to pray that they would turn into wooden mermaids when you jumped in the pool.
The landscape is amazing.
I think they really tried to channel that mermaid… every 5 seconds on every rock!
Why do you think I’m leaving LV – those bitches on a national scale 😉
Gorgeous pics but far too much like hard work for me 😉
Yeah but I lost 10 lbs by the end of the trip 😉
I’ll have to fatten you up when you get here 🙂
Let’s not. I want to be hot and fit for my future trip to Scandinavia where I must bed all the Swedes 😉
Ok all the hot and fit ones
Good. I was just about to write ‘ALL of them?’ before you clarified 😉 Luckily, most of them are hot and fit from what I’ve seen! You’ll be busy 🙂
Here’s to hoping 😉
By the way, are you on Google search today?
“how to get so horney that you would scream”
🙂
Not today. But yesterday I got “Crimea in Russian Art”
WHERE ARE ALL MY PERVERTS?!
I need more horse sex articles.
Doesn’t everyone? 😉
I am so impressed… while sitting on a comfy sofa in Stockholm!! You need to come here where everyone is glamorous and hardy at the same time – I’ve seen Stockholm party girls mopping out boats with no word of complaint. And there is also the men… 😉 Looks worth it for those photos though – they’re gorgeous!
Stop tempting me!
Seriously, I am getting all kinds of tingly just thinking of the tall, blonde rugged Swedes.
Have you checked out Outlander? My new celeb crush…
Wait, there are NO cafes on the mountain??!?! What’s next, no McDonald’s in Antarctica??? Gorgeous shots, by the way! 😀
Oh yeah. They were legit incredulous! “There should be accommodations for tourists!”
This is my favorite entry so far. I love the hiking around the rocks and the waterfalls…so gorgeous.
HAHAHA. You would have killed those bitches.
I would have out-bitched them.
oh man. IIIIII want to kill those betches! sheesh. this is my kind of workout…ya know, where I’m a little distracted from all of that work!
You would have been a fantastic companion for this!
(plus we’d alibi each other out)
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