The mountains in the background of my pictures from town are part of a huge reserve called Pico Bonito. Amalia once again spoiled us by setting up a trip to the mountains. One of the local guys from El Porvenir, Oscar, was our guide (in the yellow shirt below). We drove through Dole´s pinapple fields to get there. The fields butt up to the mountains and make use of all the water running down.
Once we entered the park, the jungle closed in around us closing out most of the light. The first warning we got was to stay on the path because of poinsonous snakes and spiders... don´t have to tell me twice. Sure enough, I saw my share of spiders, and we happened across a snake on the path. Sloane, one of the Aussies, almost stepped on us. Oscar told us it was poinsonous, but didn´t tell us till 5 minutes later that if bit by that snake, we would have to make it to a hospital within 10 minutes... or else.
The hike we did was to a waterfall, and it only took us about 45 minutes. The water was a clear as can be, and alls I wanted to do was have a swim, but the locals use the water for drinking so swiming was prohibited here. Once we got back down to the base, however, there were a couple of nice swimmin holes. One had a big waterfall that the locals were telling us to jump off of. When they wouldn´t do it themselves, we thought better of it. There was another spot further down the river where you could jump off a high rocky bank. You can see in this picture I am working on my Pterradactyl imitation.
There was also a natural waterslide built into the river. It reminded me of a place called 7 falls in Santa Barbra, Ca. We spent a couple hours escaping from the heat in the water before we finally got too shriveled up and had to head back to El Porvenir.
