Santa Fe Rain Forest Hike

Our hike through the rain forest was something straight out of a movie! I don't think any of us knew quite what to expect...but I doubt anyone will ever forget it.
We drove up, up, up the mountain to a picturesque village called Santa Fé, where we made a pit stop to pick up our guide, Edgar, who has been guiding tours through the jungle for 15 years. Edgar was one of those strong, silent types: built like a tank, and didn't say a word. Just pointed to where we should step and commanded respect with his eyes. Cosa seria, as they say. I guess my first clue to the difficulty level of this hike should have been the ropes he was putting in his pack...

The whole group- St. Eds, University School Madison, and Menomonee Falls, right before the hike.

We followed a clean, cold mountain stream for a couple of hours, surrounded on both sides by lush vegetation- vines, bromeliads, ferns, orchids (I think; I'm not a botanist). I was on the constant look out for animals but perhaps 30 people traipsing through the river gave whatever wildlife around enough of a warning to hide or flee, because we didn't see any critters. Except one. And i still wish I hadn't seen it: giant hairy spider. Ugh. But, as you can see from the pics, the boys loved climbing up the slippery boulders, splashing through pools and shimmying under fallen trees.

About half way through the hike, we came to a small waterfall with kind of built in natural rock slide. Although it looked painful watching the boys slide down, they all said it was awesome.

The hike was definitely challenging. Edgar said it was a "medium-hard" trek, due to how slippery everything was. As we reached the last waterfall, it started to rain. Since we were all soaked anyway, it didn't matter. Actually, it was dizzyingly cool to look up at the impossibly high canopy and watch the drops coming down. We had been hiking about two hours at this point, and had reached a thirty foot waterfall with a pool in front of it, and no way around. We played for a while, trying to stand up behind the waterfall, and swimming around the pool,

We climbed out of the river and went practically straight up the jungly side, across a field and finally out to road. About half the group had had enough and walked back to  our little meeting place/restaurant. The other half opted to go back into the jungle for another trek. They all came out safe and sound two hours later! After a yummy lunch of fried chicken and patacones, we headed back down the mountain to Santiago.