October 15th, 2015:
Sosua, Dominican Republic

Hey guys! I know this is the blog you've all been waiting for... But last night I was so exhausted, I just went up to the room and passed out before my head hit the pillow! Now I'm just laying by the pool ready to tell you all about our day yesterday! So here's what happened:

Our bus was leaving at 7:45 am sharp. However, that night Tevin had woken me up because his tummy was acting up and he needed some medicine... I tried my best to help him feel better, but all I could really do was let him sleep it off. :(

When we woke up, he still felt crappy, but he powered through and came with us. We met the tour guides in the lobby, along with a great big monster truck to take us on the tour. Our guides were pretty awesome: They explained a lot about the country, and about what we were driving by. The one guy, Papa Alex, spoke Spanish, English, German, and French... It was so cool! I've never heard someone speaking German with a Spanish accent before!

The drive to the waterfalls seemed long. We had to stop at multiple hotels to pick more people up. We were already sitting with the family that we had met the other day! The one from Coal Dale? We talked to them a lot. In fact, we had dinner with them after our trip! But I'll tell you about that after. We got on the highway, and since the monster truck is like sitting in a school bus with no windows, the wind was whipping through everyones hair. I noticed that there was SO MUCH GARBAGE all over the sides of the roads. It was really quite surprising. I couldn't believe the amount of garbage, actually. There were paper plates, water bottles, cigarettes, wrappers, kleenexes, and much much more... It was so sad.

After driving for about 45 minutes, we finally arrived at the Damajagua Falls (The 27 Waterfalls.) Since the Dominican is experiencing a major drought right now, only 12 of the falls are open. But it was still soooo fun! You'll see by my GoPro video!!! Which reminds me: My GoPro worked perfectly!!! I had three charged batteries with me, and three empty memory cards. I was so prepared. I've already looked at the videos to see how they turned out- I'm so excited to show you all!!!

Anyway, at the falls, the water was so nice. We had a very long, steep hike up to the river, so we were all sweating and huffing and puffing. But we all made it!!! The first initial slide into the water was so refreshing It was a tiny little baby slide into a semi-deep pool of water, so it was like a nice, slow dip into the pool. The next one, however, I don't think many people were expecting. It was a 21ft drop to the water and you had to literally step off this cliff in order to land in the correct spot. A lot of people backed out... But guess what?!?! I WAS THE FIRST ONE TO DO IT! My GoPro fell off in the water, but luckily I had looped it through a small opening on the side of my helmet. This way, if (and when!) it fell off, I wouldn't lose it completely. Even if it did fall off though, I had a bright orange case on it to be able to find it easily. And since there's a drought right now, the water isn't a fast flowing river. So it would have probably just sank to the bottom and I would have been able to grab it. Having it looped through my helmet made me worry way less about it, though. So that was good.

Oh I forgot to mention this! After the very first slide, Tevin ran into ANOTHER problem. Even though his tummy was feeling much better, he smashed his finger into a rock and peeled half of his fingernail up. It was bleeding EVERYWHERE. I know it sounds really bad and gross, and I know it hurt him a lot, but it was such a tiny rip for SO MUCH BLOOD! It slowly stopped bleeding, so he was alright for the rest of the day. Besides, I patched him up with some Polysporin and a couple bandaids when we got back to the bus. The poor guy was just having a horrible start to his day! Even Jesse got hurt! He stepped on a huge thorn and the tip broke off in his skin. It made for a gnarly sliver. We tried digging it out last night but it's still in there... I'm sure that hurt a lot too, but I think the mesmerizing sights through the rest of the falls distracted them from the pain... It was honestly so beautiful. There were rocks all around us. There were vines hanging from everywhere and leaves were falling gently on the ground. The sound of the water running and the trees rustling make it extra magical. There was also tons of butterflies fluttering around... I'm not sure if the GoPro caught that or not, but it was quite strange, considering I have a butterfly tattoo for a reason. There were also these strange... birds? Or maybe they were bugs... That once one would start making this noise, it sounded like THOUSANDS of other ones would join in too... And then it was just a very VERY loud high pitched buzzing sound coming from all around us. It was kind of cool. I won't say much more, since you'll see from the video!!!

Once we were through the falls, we drove through a super poor part of the city. Our tour guide explained that we would be visiting a couple artists who carve beautiful sculptures out of petrified wood. We sat around while he explained how it's mined, carved, and finished to create these art pieces. I wanted to buy a couple sculptures, (a horse and a souvenir of the Dominican) but they were too expensive...

After that, we went to a little patio place to have a buffet style lunch... Unfortunately it was pretty much the same as our hotel food... We were all so excited for a change, but it was just the same old rice and chicken... However, when you think about it, rice and chicken is super healthy! I'm sure all the alcohol and bread and cheese and ice cream isn't healthy, but oh well!

After lunch, we headed over to the zip lining area to get ready. We got new helmets and harnesses. These helmets were way better than the ones we had for the waterfalls. They had clips so that my GoPro strap would stay on it perfectly. I felt better about it! Plus I've done zip lining before, so it was a "breeze." Pun intended!

I'm not going to say much about the zip lining, since you'll see most of it in the GoPro video, but it was pretty fun. They had built platforms way up in the trees. It was so steep to climb up the stairs. At a couple points, I got a little scared. One wrong step and you could probably die... In fact, it was easier to crawl up the stairs than it was to hold onto the railings. I think that puts it into perspective.

After zip lining, we hopped back onto our monster truck to get back to the main area. We then walked over to the stables, and got a horse assigned to us. I was giggling quite a bit because all day, Tevin had been nervously complaining about having to horseback ride. He had never done it before, and he thought that he might break the horse's back... He was assigned a pretty big horse, so I think he felt better about that.

It was so fun because I was in the advanced group near the front. The horses were very responsive and cooperative, so you could easily make them trot, stop, turn, etc. All I could think of was how much fun my mom would have had. Especially since these horses were so well behaved. We went through grass, dirt, even through the rocky river. Going up and down hills was a little uncomfortable since my legs were sticking to the saddle... Yes, I was wearing shorts. In fact, I think everyone was wearing shorts. I was also wearing FLIP FLOPS though. And it was so funny because the guide who demonstrated how to ride the horse was also wearing flip flops! That's why I wasn't worried about it. It sure was hard to keep my feet still in the stirrups, though!

Near the end of the ride, the guide started acting weird. He wouldn't let any horse in front of him. He was holding out his hand as if to wait for something. (You'll see all this in the video, too.) All of a sudden, he dropped his hand like at the start of a race. He started yelling and whistling at the horses, and they all TOOK OFF into a FULL gallop down the straight grassy part of the field. It was sooo unexpected, but sooo fun! I think you can hear me screaming in the video because we were going so fast! It was awesome! I think that was my favourite part of the day, actually! I wish so bad that my mom could have done that with me. She would have loved it so much.

After the horseback ride, we got back onto the monster truck and had a long drive home. Tevin and I even fell asleep on each other I think. The wind from the open air and the sun made for a perfect nap.

When we got back, we sat down with our Albertan friends for some supper. I ate WAY too much, and ended up getting so sleepy that I couldn't even stay awake anymore. Like I said before, I went up to the room and fell asleep almost right away. It was such a fun day, though. I can't wait to do more things next week! Especially the scuba diving!!! :)

Talk to you guys soon!!!

Love always,
Lindsay