On that morning when the Covid quarantine began to ease, I made an appointment with a landscape photographer in Manado, a friend from the photography community. That day, we planned to visit a beautiful waterfall known to have extremely challenging terrain. It was my first experience heading to the Tekaan Telu waterfall.

This waterfall is located in Tinoor, on the border between Manado and Tomohon. It's relatively easy to find as there are signs along the Manado-Tomohon highway. However, don't be too thrilled just yet because getting to the location is quite extreme, involving descending steep and dangerous stairs, especially during the rainy season.

Fortunately, I opted not to take the extreme path. The Tomohon government, where the waterfall is located, had recently completed a new access route not far from the first one. However, the road was not entirely finished when I visited in 2021. Compared to the old route, this new access was farther but gentler, making it more relaxed for trekking, with untouched natural scenery and tall trees typical of the tropical forest.

My initial excitement turned into regret as this seemingly easy path turned out to be farther than the old one. We spent 60 minutes walking a distance of approximately 4-5 km. At that time, there were no trail markers, so we had to ask the people we encountered to avoid getting lost.

About 60 minutes into the new trekking route, we come across a junction where you can either go straight or turn right. If we go straight, we'll reach the old path leading to the river and the Tekaan Telu waterfall, while turning right takes you to a viewpoint to see the waterfall from above.

We chose the right path to view Tekaan Telu waterfall from above. Apart from being easier, we, already tired, lacked the enthusiasm to tackle the extreme route if we had gone straight.

After walking for a while on the muddy trail, we arrived at a lookout point built to enjoy the beauty of the waterfall from above. We were captivated by its natural beauty, still pristine, and it seemed like the water was flowing out of the lush greenery. We spent a lot of time taking landscape photos with the waterfall as the main subject.

Seeing our enthusiasm, other visitors asked us to take photos of them, which we gladly did as they provided interesting foreground subjects.

After spending around 2 hours at this location, my camera's battery was drained, and the memory card was full. We finally started our journey back.

As it turned out, the journey back was tougher than we expected. While it took us over an hour to get there, the return trip consumed almost 3 hours, and it was a challenging struggle to get back to our parking lot. To make it worst we didn't bring enough drinking water. Oh, what a bummer!

If you're planning to visit Tekaan Telu waterfall, please note that there aren't many facilities at this tourist spot. There are no vendors selling water or food, so make sure you bring enough supply of bottled water before heading there. Additionally, there are no toilet facilities, so in some areas near the lookout point, you might catch a whiff of the unpleasant odor from visitors.

shorts video of this beautiful waterfall

Tekaan Telu waterfall holds great potential to become a favorite tourist destination for travelers. It needs some improvements, especially in access and supporting facilities. However, any development undertaken by the local government i hope should preserve the natural beauty of this waterfall. Hopefully, I can return to Tekaan Telu waterfall once again and explore its beauty more closely.

I hope you all enjoy reading my Travel Story. What do you think about this place? Please comment below. Thank you.

Best Regard @mytravelandscape
Makassar, 13 September 2023.
Note : Date of this trip was on July 2021