Siete Cascadas

This past weekend we went to Ibarra to hang out with Daniela Borja and her family. It was her younger sister's, Cristina, 18th birthday. The 18th birthday here is really the coming of age...what the 21st birthday is for us North Americans. While Cristina and her friends all hung out and listened to Jack Johnson, us "oldies" watched movies.

The next day, we took a drive to the "Siete Cascadas" (7 Waterfalls), just slightly west of Ibarra, towards the coast. It's amazing how everything changes once you leave the Sierra and head towards the Coast. The climate goes from dry to very humid; the leaves change from your average green to vibrant yellows, oranges and reds; tropical fruits grow in abundance, the insects get larger and more populous; the mountains are more green and populated by more trees, even the people are different....they have different accents (they speak very fast)and the women from the coast are famous for thier latin "curves".

When the Borja's said we were going to the 7 waterfalls, we pictured a scenic drive with some stops along the way to take some pictures......that was not the case. We stopped off at a local tourist shop and picked up some rain boots, and hiked up and down through a rain forest type atmosphere for about 3 hours. It was sooo beautiful. A little muddy and messy but beautiful. We ended up only going to 3 of the 4 waterfalls just for the sake of time. To do all 7 means a FULL day. We ate bannanas picked off the trees, which were the most amazingly sweet and delicious bannanas ever! The boys did thier thing and jumped off the rocks surrounding the waterfalls(the picture below is Chris jumping). The girls chilled (literally) in the ice cold water. There was one very scary moment in which Rafael Sr. (Daniela's dad) was climbing the flat faced rock to get to the top so he could jump....well, a minute later we saw him lose his grip and fall, back first, into the water below. It was soooo scary...none of us knew if there were rocks at the bottom of that drop or not. But, luckily, he was okay. A little freaked out and scratched up but okay. From that point on I held on to Chris a little tighter before he attempted his jumps!
We had a great time. Probably one of our favorite days here so far. It was sooooo nice to be out of the city, out of the noise and congestion and just enjoy God's BEAUTIFUL creation.