10 Years, 12 Nights, 6 Hotels, ONE LOVE - April 2012 Trip Report

[Hubby-man]

When the handrail finally opened up and allowed access to the water, we all were bursting with the desire to dunk ourselves into the river. Let’s get baptized in this experience.

Everyone was already splashing around by the time I reached the spot. Tizzy was swinging wildly from a rope fastened to an overhanging branch 100 feet up. The range of each of the long rope’s swings was enormous and though she moved slowly, just above the water surface, she could not control her trajectory and comically crashed into a laughing group of tourists.





I filmed the whole spectacle from the platform, when Mr. Spottycatz urgently tapped my shoulder.

“Oh dear, oh dear! Look at my wife, she is gonna jump from that ridiculous contraption up there, while I am pissing my pants watching her.” I followed the direction he was pointing in and found Mrs. Spottycatz waving from up above, where she held onto a rope, about to swing over the river and drop 15 feet into the water below. Then she pushed off and disappeared behind a tree. A second later we heard a huge splash over the roaring of the water fall, followed by cheering turtles in the river.

“Man, that looks like fun, Mr. Spottycatz! Let’s do it.”

“Oh, I don’t think so! You wouldn’t do that, would you?” He responded shaking his head, as if this was thoroughly silly idea.

I chose the rope as my entry point into the water and joined the jolly fun in the wet.

We splashed around for almost an hour. Then groups of people explored onward. Marley and Ninja set off to splurge on a zip-line experience, they had budgeted for this reach. Everyone else trotted further up the path, back and forth, mesmerized by their surroundings.

Daisy and I observed Guiriguy, as he struggled time and time again against the current, trying to reach the fall just in front of him. As soon as he got close indeed, the forces of the water overwhelmed him and rapidly washed him some 30 feet backwards. He found his footing and with incorrigible termination set out to complete his Sisyphus task once again, of course with the same result. It was incredibly interesting to observe.

Later, after setting out on a solo exploration, I found my wife and Guiriguy talking at a handrail. I observed them from a platform high up above. The sunlight filtered green through a cathedral of trees and epiphytes. My vantage point was lofty. We seemed to have arrived at the well of life itself and I could see it all from here.



When I made my way back down the slippery stairs, Daisy stood alone, looking across the raging waters, tears streaming down her face.

“Are you O.K., Baby?”

“I don’t know.”, she replied. “I feel so, … so intensely happy. I feel they are all here,… the people that left. The lost ones, I have been missing. I feel like I don’t ever want to leave this spot.” She was deeply moved.

Guiriguy joined from behind. He too was in a special state. He pointed out the strangest things. I followed him to the big waterfall and he urgently pointed out a tiny little trickle of water that ran parallel to it.



“Look!” he exclaimed most excitedly. “Look there! The small waterfall! Isn’t it that most beautiful thing you ever saw?”

It was beautiful.