Air Terjun Bantimurung

South Sulawesi


These waterfalls, 42km from Makassar, are set amid lushly vegetated limestone cliffs. Looking up, it’s straight out of Jurassic Park, but then you scan the ground level and it’s a classic objek wisata (tourist object), crowded with day trippers on weekends, and peppered with litter and concrete. Upstream from the main waterfall there’s another smaller waterfall and a pretty, but treacherous, pool (take a torch to make it through the cave en route).

It's a highly scenic spot matched by a high entrance fee for foreigners; it feels a bit like daylight robbery, until you consider your contribution might help keep this place from being ground up for cement factories.

Bantimurung is also famous for its beautiful butterflies; however, numbers are plummeting as locals trap them to sell to visitors or export on the black market.

Catch a Damri bus or pete-pete (10,000Rp, one hour) to Maros from Makassar Mall bus stop in Makassar, then a pete-pete to Bantimurung (10,000Rp, 30 minutes).