Our cruise ship docked at Taino Bay. Then we headed out to the taxi cab area to find our excursion we had booked online directly with Marysol Tours. Then ride there was beautiful with a pretty scenery. We would see a lot of cows and horses everywhere along the way on the hillsides as well.

The tour guide had told us it was about a 45 minute ride to the falls. However, we were pulling in within 30 minutes so it wasn't a bad ride at all.  Now I had read (and seen some pictures) of the horses they have along the trails in case someone needs medical attention, they are able to help them and/or take them back on the horse. I'm not sure if this was one of them or if this was just a horse for a horseback riding tour.

The entrance to the gear up and food area:

Once we arrived, our tour guide told us to follow him to the building. We were there quite early and he said we would need to wait for about 30 minutes to an hour for other "groups" to arrive. Wait what? I'm wondering what other groups? We were the only one that booked with them and came alone and would later find out why.

We took this time to go to the bathroom and also gather everything we would need for the falls and then we put our bags in the lockers. They had lockers there behind a desk and the amount you paid for the locker depended on how big of a locker you needed. Of course we packed a lot (and should have just left it in the locked van but didn't want to walk back out there) and our amount was $4.00.

As we sat around waiting, we noticed there were a lot of people arriving now. Then we noticed people gearing up with their helmets and life jackets. Finally he told us that we needed to hurry to go get fitted for the tour and pointed at one of the groups already geared up. We went over and gathered our life jackets and helmets and the group was already starting to walk. Our tour guide with Marysol said he wouldn't be going with us and we would be going with another group. He said he had an injury months ago (in his neck) and he had not been released from the doctor yet to do any jumping.

So...off we went on the hike. There were bridges, dirt trails, wooden trail and rocks. Every type of terrain you could think of along this hike. We were in for a .... treat?

We absolutely love hiking and nature and we walk in the various parks at home, but the terrain here would not be the same (of course...I mean after all, we are going up a mountain to the falls right?)

I had been reading various reviews that stated that all of the falls were not open due to less rainfall so I knew going into this that we would only be doing 12 falls instead of 27 or something along that nature. I was ok with that since I really didn't know what to expect from the waterfalls AND my broken down body these days.

We came to a large bridge that we would have to cross to get over to the other side.  But everyone had stopped. What were they looking at?

Ohhhhhh, I see now. There was a large herd of cows crossing under the bridge. They kept coming and coming and coming. There were so many of them. There must have been at least 30 cows that went under the bridge as we were crossing it. 

Up and over the bridge we went...and more cows coming...

Of course there was one waiting to greet us on the other side of the bridge too.

If anyone was wondering about the heat and sun, you are surrounded by trees and was always in the shade. Never once did we feel hot or overheated...well, except for all the walking involved but never because it was so hot and humid from the sun. Also, we didn't experience any bugs at all either.

We started the first of many steps to climb...They kept going and going and going and going...whew!

We finally made it to the top and I was huffing and puffing. Although I've lost a bunch of weight and feel so much better at everything I do, I'm still not in shape despite all the walking that I do at home. I thought my heart was going to pound out of my chest at this point. Those last couple of steps to make it to this resting area with seats were torturous. 

It never felt so good to sit down! Everyone was huffing and puffing and we all sounded like we had just ran a marathon. That made me feel a little better...I was not alone in this journey. The hubby kept asking if I was ok as I gave him the "are you not ok yourself" stare. Sakari, well she was perfectly fine. Kids! Humph!

As we started our journey again, more cows lined the fence along the way.

In some places, there was cacti lining the trail.

Sakari was in the lead ahead of us, but yet notice how far back "we" were in relation to the group. LOL  She wanted to be up there with them, but yet didn't want to leave us behind. How sweet of her right?

We climbed a lot of stairs that day and at one point everyone was completely worn out and we all stopped ON the stairs to rest. It was a LONG set of stairs leading up the mountain...like really long.

But when we finally made it up and we would come to a resting place again. Whew! At this point I was pretty sure I was about to have a heart attack and hoped that my family remembered all the cpr I have taught them. If not, where's that medic horse at? I honestly didn't think I was going to catch my breath. My heart was pounding, my legs were throbbing and I'm pretty sure someone had lit them on fire at this point. Does anyone smell smoke?

They allowed us to sit there for awhile and told us the worse was over...THANK GOODNESS! No more climbing stairs. We had made it to the top. That made we very happy!

I took this picture as we started the trail to the waterfalls. It said waterfall #7. Hmmm, ok. I guess we weren't doing 12 of them after all, which was a little disappointing. Maybe more of them had dried up as time went on. Safety first.

 We were told no more climbing but what I didn't realize is that we were now going to be going down stairs...which is difficult for me. I look like a duck waddling when I go down stairs since my ankle does not bend in that direction. I would just have to waddle and turn sideways as I always do...but this was going to be a slow process.

Several times I stopped to let others by because I didn't want to hold anyone up.

We were going down...WAY DOWN.

We could finally hear the water echoing off the rocks. The excitement was building as we made our way down...and truth be known, my anxiety was in high speed right now not knowing what to expect from our first jump. 

We had made it to the first platform and looking down, I was nervous. Lord have mercy on me! I just kept thinking...if I get hurt, this is the first port and I will be done the rest of the cruise and not get to do anything else in the other ports. Will i survive? 🤞

Now they do have steps for the "chickens" in the group. Peer pressure from the tour guides telling everyone that they were welcome to take the stairs down if they didn't want to jump, however...everyone was going to make fun of you and talk about it. Well, his little talk didn't do much good because there were quite a few people that chickened out on that first jump saying "we'll try the next one". (There was no slide here...only a jump. Either you do it or not). Those stairs looked a little harder for me to navigate...so I had made up my mind that I was jumping!