27 Charcos

These little lizards were a pleasant surprise.  I had completely forgotten I once spent an entire day on my mission trying to "catch" one with a pencil and floss tied up like a fishing pole.  Admittedly my companion was sick in bed and I was bored to tears.  So seeing these cute little guys randomly around our house on walls, in bathrooms, was just a happy memory returned.

Dana apparently had different memories from his mission.

Honestly, one of the best parts of this trip was just being adults- sitting around chatting, taking naps when we wanted, going where we wanted, when we wanted, without the stress of entertaining kids or staying on their schedule.  This porch was the best with the cool breeze and huge palm trees providing cover from the neighbors.

The closest I came to water on my mission was stepping on a beach with the mission nurse.  So when I googled what to do in Puerto Plata and 27 Charcos (Waterfalls) came up, I was super excited.  I mean, come on.  Canyoneering in a 3rd world country with little to no rules.  Awesome!

And although Taylor brought along his goPro camera, he has still not figured out how to turn the videos in to photos so I've stolen these shots off the internet.  So none of the people are actually us, but the surroundings are exactly the amazing experience we had.  This is one of my top 2 most amazing adventures in the world EVER!

First you take a winding, sometimes steep hike through the woods for about 45 minutes.  You're all geared up in a life jacket and helmet and water shoes.  

Then you get to this large pool, not really a lake, but a big pool of aqua water.  You scramble up boulders and ladders until you get to the top of a cliff and from there... you JUMP!

And slide...

 And float through narrow canyon after canyon.

 At times you're wading/walking through these amazing rock formations.

 And other times you're slipping and sliding until you get to a true natural slide where you slide and then plunge 10-20 feet into deep, chilly, pools of aqua-filled water.  

Some of the slides are pretty short.

And then you're floating, slow swimming through these tight canyons until you reach the end where you hike a short distance out drenched but wishing you could do it all again, if you weren't totally exhausted already.

 I was brave and did the 25 foot cliff jump near the end.  I mean look at that.  The people are all standing and you just know it's the stupidest thing to step off the cliff and plummet 25 feet below into a pool that looks shallow.  Luckily it is not and everyone survived, although the plunge was very freaky.  One of the best days ever!