Olumirin comes down the Effon Ridge in Osun State, in southwestern Nigeria, in seven steps. The tiers are no accident. Hard bands of quartzite lie over softer rock here, and each band holds its own ledge while the weaker stone underneath is scooped out. The same cracked quartzite leaks water along the whole ridge and feeds two other falls nearby. The first step is the one most people meet. It is a short walk from the gate and a stream crossing, and the curtain lands in a bowl of dark rock, mossy and uneven underfoot. The canopy opens above the basin, so sunlight reaches the water. Standing under the heaviest thread, you find it hits harder than it looks, and the pool is shallow enough that you brace rather than swim. At weekends the bowl belongs to families and church groups, there to get into the water rather than look at it.
Above that it gets quiet quickly. Stone steps take you past the first two tiers, every tread mossy and the handrail giving out early. After that the route is two or three hours of hand-over-hand work on wet quartzite, across the boundary into Ekiti State, with the noise below fading at every ledge. The seasons decide which version you get. In the rains all seven curtains run at full weight and the upper rock turns dangerous; the dry harmattan thins them to threads and opens the whole staircase. None of this is scenery to the town below. Olumirin is a deity, the water is used for cleansing, and the taboos kept around the site have also kept the forest and the stream intact. The town below, Erin-Ijesa, was founded by the princess who found the water: Akinla, leading her people away from Ile-Ife to look for somewhere to live. And the seventh fall spills out of Abake, a farming hamlet on the ridge where a few households sell snacks to whoever gets that far, and where everyone drinks the stream that has been pouring past you all the way up.