The rush of water and other nature lateness

With one finger on the guidebook map, I shrugged a signal asking how to get there. His hotel owner eyes widened in distress, pointed at his wrist, then a clock, and shouted, “Hurry!” He came out from behind his counter, motioned at the parking lot then at my open door where she was standing.

We both grabbed our bags and were ushered out and into the back seat of his car, idling. We ripped out the parking lot towards the park’s exit. He pulled up haphazardly with a screech in front the bus stop.

The hotelier spoke in Korean to the driver, we handed fare and headed on, grateful eyes thanking. On to the mountain. Over a bridge of broken boulders we sank our feet into the soil’s morning wetness. To the first hike and the first site of the day: a waterfall of autumn crispness.