The Coolest Thing I've EVER Done!!!

We knew this location near Dominical boasted many incredible waterfalls, and since those are our favorite thing to see, we debated back and forth whether to pay $135 per person to go on a tour of three of them in one day.  The tour would show us the best places to jump off the various waterfalls, one of which was like a natural water slide!  How cool!  But in the end we decided that with 5 kids, it probably wouldn't turn out the way we imagined.  We researched which one would be the best for our family and ultimately chose Nauyaca Falls. It turned out to be the coolest thing I've ever done! 

 We had to hike 2.5 miles up a steep dirt road in the blazing hot sun.  The kids amazed me with their strength!  We sang and talked about our imaginary worlds to keep our minds off the discomfort.  Lincoln would have an ice cream tree in his backyard!  Sweet!  We finally arrived at the upper falls, which were massive, 147 feet tall.  So majestic.

 Then we hiked down to the lower falls and found this chestnut mandibled toucan RIGHT by us!  He sang his beautiful song and tried to eat our lunch!  He cheered Jade up, who was exhausted after the grueling hike.  He even bit Brigham as he tried to snag his sandwich!

  With the cold water spraying in our faces, Adam discovered a way to climb up the falls.  He always finds a way to make things a little more adventurous!  While all the other crowds sat on some rocks and watched, Adam had to actually climb the waterfall! Ahh it was so crazy because it wasn't just water below us!  The rocks were stepped and not slippery, so it wasn't super sketchy, but I definitely didn't want to fall!  I do love my adrenaline rushes though:).

 We then climbed up a little higher and JUMPED OFF!!!  It was probably 20-25 feet down and we landed at the bottom of that other waterfall to the left.  I'm sad that this was the most awesome thing ever and we didn't get great photos of it!  I go through phases where I just want to enjoy the moment and not be stressed about taking photos.  Plus, it's hard to drag our big, nice camera to these wet, sandy places!  These photos are with our phones, so they're not great, and then we LOST OUR GOPRO!!!!  Saddest day.  We took awesome videos and photos of us actually jumping, but they are all lost.

We also climbed up the other side of the waterfall on the left, then shimmied along the ledge of the rock BEHIND the waterfall, and then jumped THROUGH the waterfall!!!!  Ahhhh I can't even describe what a cool feeling that was!  We could swim under where the waterfall landed and go behind it in a little cove. Oh my goodness, it was so incredible!  It felt so much more magnified right up against the rushing, loud water. Brigham and Jade wanted to jump again and again!

A bunch of people watched us and videoed us and thought we were a bit crazy, but then others wanted to come join us!

And can you believe this scenery with that huge waterfall behind the smaller one we were on?  It looks unreal!

 If people thought I was crazy, they were blown away when Adam took Jade and Brigham up the waterfall!  Those kids are so adventurous and wanted to go again and again!  No fear!

It was hard to stop the fun, but we decided to finally head back down the trail.  When we arrived in the parking lot, we discovered that we were the last car to leave!  We had to soak up every second of adventure!  The sun went down and we drove up the steep, dirt road as it got dark.  And then...dun dun dun...the van stalled.  We had run completely out of gas.  In an attempt to get a little more juice going to get up the hill, Adam tried to turn the van around, but it stopped for good at an angle on the road with a cliff on one side and a mountain wall on the other.  We completely blocked the whole road!  What to do? Everyone else had left already!  Or had they?  We immediately said a prayer and I remembered that we had prayed to get home safely that morning.  Not a minute later a car drove up full of people we had met at the waterfall.  They agreed to give Adam a ride to the nearest town to get gas while I waited in the van in the middle of nowhere for who knows how long.  I locked the doors and got some cash ready to pay off any attackers and started to pray.  After about 15 minutes I saw a  guy on a motorcycle come by and I was so scared!   He stopped and walked up to the van. I cautiously opened the door, cash in hand, but the kind kid just asked if he could help.  That happened 2 more times.  People here are so nice!  I didn't feel scared anymore, just anxious as I tried to entertain the kids in a hot, locked van for an hour.  (We told lots of stories...). Finally, Adam returned with some gas.  The people had taken him to a gas station but couldn't bring him back.  They were so nice though, and asked multiple people around if they could take him.  Adam ended up just calling a taxi, and soon we were on our way.  We arrived home around 10 pm, all smiles after an incredibly adventurous day!!!  One of my favorites!!!