Toro Toro, you are the gem of my world!

So many stories.  The bus ride to Toro Toro was horrendous.  I wasn´t sure if any of it was worth it when:  I didn´t have enough room to cross my arms but I did have an old woman sitting on my lap, pig pen and his family crammed to my left, a oddly sticky woman and her kid sitting in the aisle next to me, chickens above me, clamped shut window, a 6 hour layover and someone who smelled like pee and sausage.  And then I got to Toro Toro.  AMAZING!!!!! There is a dinosaur statue (think Universal Studio type) that is their main plaza.  I couldn´t stop smiling. I saw:

It is so calming to see light after shuffling around in the dark for an hour!  My guide is the light on the bottom.  Umajalanta Cave

I´ve found the Great Valley!  How cool are dino footprints????  I love it! There were so many :)

I am shimming on my belly through this crack for about 20 feet.  Anyone seen the movie Decent? That´s all I could think.

This waterfall litterally took my breath away.  It was perfect.  So refreshing.  So rewarding!

Now, of course it can´t all be peaches and cream...  The first day I went for a hike seeing 7 different sites and ended up walking/hiking for 8 hours.  It was my dream and I loved it! Walking in a beautiful landscape my guide led me to a totally unexpected canyon.  It was like a mini grand canyon.  Stunning. We hiked down (where the waterfalls were) and then on the way back we decided to take an alternate route rather than the 930 steps back up. Sweet.  I like adventure, right?  The guide asked if I was scared of heights and if I minded getting a little wet because we would be walking along the river. 

For those of you who remember me talking about how hard the 3 Sisters Waterfalls hike was, that was childsplay! First I thought wow, I am impressed that he thinks I am capable of hiking like this, and second, I am impressed I can do it! This was full body hiking. All apendages needed. Scaling walls, jumping, and lots of balance.

Then came that jump.

My guide is flying across everything in his path and even this jump looked hard.  But, obviously, he made it.  Standing from a small part of one boulder, I needed to jump off another smooth and steep boulder to make it to the third more flat boulder where I could stand.  The second one had nothing to hold on to and was at such an incline it was impossible not to jump.  Quicksand type mud was below, not an option.  So, knowing I had little traction in my shoes, I decided to go for it.  Can´t wait too long or I would have never done it.  Live only once, right? :)  Can anyone guess what happened?  :)   My arms were spread out; one holding on to the side of the rock I was jumping from and the other ready to grasp at the last rock. I lept thinking the hardest part was just to jump, and this is such a bad ass hike!  Well, my shoe didn´t put up much of a fight and I slid right off that boulder. The first thing to hit was my face against the boulder.

Well, didn´t really see that coming. First thing is first, holy crap, is my jaw broken? No.  Do I have all my teeth? Yes. Ouch.  I am sinking further and further into the mud. My poor guide is hysterical.  He helps me up and is worring about the bloody welt developing on my knee and keeps asking if I am ok. ¨Me cara, es me cara.¨  He looks up and gasps.  Then pushes on my cheek.  Liquid leaks out (not blood) and it continues to for the next 20 min.  Glad he did that cause it helped with swelling. I convinced him that it was ok to continue and with a few tears dried, on we went! The rest was amazing.  The next day was a cave where all I could think of is ´they really let tourist do this?´ Slidding in the dark, holes, boulders, ropes, ladders, tiny cracks to climb through (with difficulty!).  It was AWESOME! The bus ride back was SO much better and because of the rain we had 4 road blocks.  A few was from landslides and we needed to break the rock apart to clear the road,  Others were washed out road so we needed to put rocks in the water so  the bus could pass.  I helped :)  Got muddy, in my only clean pants!  Now off to Santa Cruz! Hope you all are doing well and haven´t been punched in the face with rock! :)  Ahh, good times :)  It is funny, really, just think about it.

Do you see a path here? Neither do I. Scale the sides!  None of the rocks in the middle are close enough to jump.  Welcome to the hike