The Rainforest Retreat: the Middle

We started getting into the swing of things. Everyday we would be assigned to a different housekeeper, and would most likely be sentenced to scrubbing toilets and showers for 4 hours. I guess it hasn't been so bad--it still beats sitting in an office!

We've been working every morning 9-2, and have pretty much every afternoon free to do what we like. Although many things are only accessible by car, we've still found plenty to do within walking distance.

Friday (Jan. 23)
The weather was hot, and we needed a cool hike. We went with Chris (while Mike had the evening shift) to a tunnel walk, which is an old goldmine you can walk through. It had freezing cold water up to our ankles the whole way, and became completely dark pretty quickly (once again my headlamp came in handy). There were some glow worms to look at as well, which never gets old. At the end of the tunnel was a large wooden bridge with walls up to our shoulders. Chris and Mike had told us of a secret spot to swim (one of the locals showed them where it was the day before), but I couldn't imagine where we could access it from here. Chris casually exclaimed how we hop over the fence, scale the outside wall of the bridge, climb down some rocks, and enter the closed off tunnel on the other side.

What.


Mariah opted out (probably the wise choice), but I decided to give it a go. Somehow we made it (and managed not to slip and fall to our deaths, as water was showering us from above), and then entered through a giant wooden door and disappeared from Mariah's view into an even darker tunnel. I, being the genius that I am, had left my headlamp back with Mariah. Yolo?

We walked through the creepy tunnel and it got shorter and shorter until we almost needed to walk on hands and knees. I bottled up the claustrophobia and acted like I was totally unafraid. We finally made it to "the spot," which turned out to be a square hole in the ceiling with a heavy sheet of metal on top. Chris climbed up and moved it out of the way, and blinding sunlight poured in. We clambered out of the square hole, wiped off my dirty hands on my shorts, and looked around. This is what I saw:

Not a bad secret place! There's a nice waterfall to the right, and some boulders to the left:

We opted not to swim that time, but took a few nice pictures and went back down through the square hole in the ground and the tunnel sized for tiny people.

Saturday (Jan. 24)

The next day wasn't too exciting; after work we just went to a café to get some decent wifi for a change. We were trying to find a paid job in Queenstown, where we want to go next. So far no luck, but hopefully we'll have updates on that soon....

After our afternoon of wifi we drank some of the leftover beers in our fridge, and I introduced the boys to Irish Poker (which was a huge hit, obvi).

Sunday (Jan. 25)

This was an extremely hot day, and we all were craving a good swim. It seemed that the rest of the staff had the same idea, as we were invited to "the only good place to swim," which turned out to be a part of the river which had a rope leading up to cliffs for jumping off of. I've cliff jumped a couple times, so I was more afraid of the rope climbing part. I decided to just go for the smaller cliff, since my twig-like arms should be able to haul me up at least that far.

Mariah watches as someone climbs up the rope to the cliff above.

Besides cutting my toe, I was able to make it up without too much trouble. I watched as a couple of the male staff members did cool flips off the cliff, and then I readied myself for a simple pencil dive. Here's how it went:

After the rest of the staff left, the four of us hung around, each found surprisingly comfortable rocks to lounge on, and read books or just relaxed. I jumped back into the chilly river whenever I got too warm. It was perfect.

Once we started getting devoured by sand flies we went back "home" for our delicious (and free) dinner. 

We were at peace that evening. Little did we know of what was to come... 

.....To be continued.