Road Trip!! Siete Tazas Edition

We then stuffed ourselves back into the van and truck and drove (or rode...) off. I had the privilege of sitting in the middle in the front of the van. Trust me, you get a much better view there than among eight others in the back. It was so awesome!! I saw a wild pig! It was as ugly as an ugly wild pig...ok, it was brown, furry, and, well, ugly. But it was awesome! I hadn't seen a wild pig before...

We went over to Siete Tazas (Seven Tea-cups), which appeared to be in their form of our State or National Parks. There are seven pools within the river, and about five waterfalls connecting them. The Longs kept enforcing the idea not to run it if we had any doubts. Seeing as I had some doubts (ok, I admit, I was kinda freaked out with the idea of blindly launching myself off over a rock ledge...I had visions of Michelle getting impaled on a random rock jutting out), I chickened out on the first run. Kenneth said they would probably run it twice, so we (Mackenzie and Nico also chickened out with me) could watch the first run and join them on the second.

The total run was supposed to take about twenty minutes, but as we understood, it was virtually a vertical put-in, so we allowed time for them to deal with that. Meanwhile, we (Mackenzie and I) walk down to the bottom two waterfalls (the only ones that you can see) loaded with cameras. We get down to the view point along with many other tourists, and I realize they are jumping the fence left and right. Being a notorious rule follower, I figure the fence was placed there for a reason. But we jump it anyway. Mackenzie goes farther out than I am comfortable with, in order to get closer to the waterfalls. Michelle stays on her nice, solid, close-to-the-fence ledge.

Time passes. I gaze upon the awesome cliffs and how the sun hits them, and the foliage growing on the sides. More time passes. Mackenzie yells back "Where are they?" I respond with a shrug just as Carly and Nico jump the fence and join us.

Time passes. I gaze upon the awesome cliffs and how the sun hits them, and the foliage growing on the sides. More time passes. I give in and (terrified the whole time) climb over to where Mackenzie and Carly are sitting.

Time passes. I gaze upon the awesome cliffs and how the sun hits them, and the foliage growing on the sides. More time passes. (Sounding familiar??) And guess what? More time passes. We decide that at 1:00 we would reassess the situation and figure out what to do. (We have visions of everyone slipping in a domino effect at the put in, leaving everyone with a broken wrist, broken ankle, concussions, or worse.)

During this time, I completely convince myself to run it on the next run. I really get myself excited.

Finally, at about 1:00, we see them at the top of the first waterfall (that we can see). We set up our cameras (six between the four of us) and start hitting the button. I failed on a bunch of mine. Instead of awesome pictures of kayakers totally owning the waterfall, I have many awesome pictures of the waterfall with the kayaker in the white foam at the bottom, totally out of sight. But I did get a few that worked out really well, especially on the second waterfall after I figured out to start hitting the button when they appeared to be going over the edge at the top, so maybe the camera would register it as they reached the middle...

Seeing as we needed to leave around 1:00 to get home on time, we did not have time for another run. Apparently there had been issues on the first waterfall, leaving the vast majority of the group repelling (along with all the boats and gear) down the waterfall.

As we were leaving, we stopped by another viewpoint from which multiple awesome waterfalls (completely un-runnable) could be viewed. Then we all squished back into the van with our turkey sandwiches for the ride back to Pucon...