Remember the Waterfalls?

Here it is! "The" story from the cruise. I surely hope you heard it on last week's podcast, because the truth is, nothing beats this story like the out-loud version, but here are a few visuals to accompany it.

Months ago, Ryan told me about this waterfall tour he found, and he wanted to know if I was good with doing it. He explained that there were 27 waterfalls that you could hike up to and then hike/jump/slide your way back down. He did tons of research on the trip, read SO many reviews, and said that there were opportunities to jump over some of the falls and go down some slides, but there were also trails that went around those places, so if you didn't WANT to do those things, you didn't have to. Of course I'm not that adventuresome, so I was comforted by the whole "trails go around it" part. I agreed to the day, because I knew he really wanted to do it, and after all, this was his birthday trip.

The day after Ryan's birthday, which was a Thursday, we awakened as we were pulling into Amber Cove, which is a Carnival-owned port in the Dominican Republic.

Ryan went to get coffee for us and discovered it was also the day the housekeeping staff put all the towel animals out on the deck:

We hurried to get ready and eat some breakfast, so we could get off the ship as soon as they said we could. We had booked our tour outside the cruise line, so we had to hike outside of port to meet our group.

Our group gathered in a little van, and it ended up being the two of us, and a family of five: mom, dad, and three tween/teen boys. They were a LOT of fun, and we enjoyed sharing the van with them. Another couple was supposed to join us, but they missed the bus (by like a half hour).

You may remember, if you heard the podcast, that we had our waterproof camera with us, but we still weren't super well-versed in using it. I had asked Ryan the night before if he would recharge the battery, but he assured me it was fine. When we arrived (after a harrowing drive) at the excursion site, they offered us a personal photographer to follow us around and take photos and videos for $50, but Ryan declined since we had our waterproof camera. What you're about to see is proof of why that is the one regret of our entire marriage. Here's all we have to show for the day, because as you may have heard, the waterproof camera died early on.

We had to don life jackets and helmets for the adventure.

This is really the only good picture we have of the two of us that day. The guide offered to take the one after that, but...

...Ryan seems to be missing his brain.

We were told when we boarded the bus that although we were technically in the Dominican's rainy season, it had been an unseasonably dry four months, so we were only going to be able to do 12 waterfalls, not 27. The upper falls were too dry to safely tour/jump. Ryan was so sad, because he really wanted to do them all, and he wanted to do the last 2.5 miles of the hike up. (As it was, this was a Divine providence, I believe. I don't think I could have survived all 27 falls. I did, however, survive the hike just fine.)

I mean, doesn't this face appear to be the face of pure joy? (I don't know why I look angry. I wasn't.)

 I call this "reality setting in."

And then we hit the first jump. This is the one you HAD to do to get in the water. No way around it. No trail. (It was higher than it looks in this picture.) That is indeed me with my guide grabbing onto me to jump with me. I was sobbing. And all around Ryan in the water there were the rest of the tour people (about 20 of them by that point) cheering me on.

I DID IT!!!

 Totally in his element...

My attempt to get photos of Ryan on the 30 foot jump. Here he is (in the blue helmet) getting ready to jump.

The splash at the bottom is Ryan:

The last photo we have before the camera's death: That's me sitting at the top of the rock slide with a guide beside me to push and another one at the bottom to catch.

And that's it. All we have.

We can laugh about it now, but oh, what we wouldn't both give to have had the REAL story fully captured in pictures. Moral? Don't ever pass up the picture package.

When the tour ended, we hiked back to the starting point, changed our clothes, and had a Dominican meal. With our phones back in our possession, we were able to get more pictures. And this Coke was SO GOOD. First one I'd had in days.

We got back to the ship a little early, since our tour was abbreviated. We went back on board, dumped off some of our stuff, and came back off the ship to explore Amber Cove a little bit. It was a beautiful port.

We got back on board and sat on the balcony as the ship left port that afternoon. (After calling for several folks who weren't on board when they should have been.)

That night was the second formal night for dinner, so we started completely over with getting ready, and I think we transformed fairly well!

We enjoyed dinner that night and even made some friends!! We enjoyed getting to know them and have even emailed with them since we got home! New friends for the win! :)

It's certainly a day we'll never forget. Remember the waterfalls???