The Blue Nile Falls is the most dramatic spectacle on either the Blue Nile rivers. Four hundred metres (1,312 feet) wide when in flood, and dropping over a straight down chasm more than forty-five metres (150 Feet) deep the falls throw up a continuous spray of water, which drenches onlookers up to some hundred meters away. After leaving the village the footpath Meanders first beside open and fertile fields, then drops into a deep rift that is spanned by an ancient, fortified stone bridge built in the seventeenth century by Portuguese adventurers and still in use. After a thirty-minute walk, a stiff climb up a grassy hillside is rewarded by a magnificent view of the falls, breaking the smooth edge of the rolling river into a thundering cataract of foaming water. A rewarding but longer trek is to walk along the east bank all the way to the back of the falls; crossing the river by papyrus boat known as 'Tankwa'.