Waterfall and Rain forest

Today, we did a school tour into the rain forest. We first went to the Annandale waterfall. This was a very pretty waterfall, and beside the fall was a diving point. There were two professional divers there to dive off of the rock and into the water. I am just guessing at the height, since no one told us, but I would guess 45 feet above the water.

Anyway the two divers jumped and of course made it look simple.

Then they asked us students, "who wants to jump". Are you kidding me, we are students about to start med school. This is a school trip, and they bring us to this cliff and ask who wants to jump off of the cliff, this would never happen in America. You would have to sign like 95 waivers saying that you wouldn't sue the school, the country, the world ,and GOD for creating the cliff. So, about 15 of students did jump. It was quite impressive. Dang it, I knew I should have brought my swimsuit to the school tour.

So everyone lived and there were many whoops, and hollers, and hand claps, and then we get back on the buses.  We then go up some very narrow curvy roads that made that cliff jumping look like a piece of cake, and arrive at a parking area. We walk down a trail, to the "Bottomless Lake" also known as Grand Etang Lake.

This is a beautiful lake, that is bottomless. Well the bottom has not yet been found. There have been many attempts at finding it, including modern sonar, but so far, the lake is deeper than modern technology can reach. So who knows how deep the lake is. That is what we were told on the tour, but when we got home, a quick trip to Wikipedia revealed that the lake is actually 20 ft deep. So almost bottomless. We then go on a short (15 minutes in and 15 minutes out) hike into the rain forest. This is where the nice paved road stops, and the muddy dirt trail begins. The trail wasn't that bad on the way up, but on the way back down it was quite slippery.

We basically hiked up part of the mountain, and we had some great views. The forest is quite dense, but it was the different kinds of trees and flowers that made it so unique. Also we saw a monkey.

So some people did have a harder time on the hike down, and it was hard for them to hide it, because there backside's were very muddy. No, I was not a part of the falling down and getting muddy, I happen to have some experience in walking in mud, I am from TN. The tour was supposed to be from 2-5, but we didn't get back to campus until 5:55, which would not matter except we had a mandatory meeting at 6:00. So the students with the muddy backsides, did not have time to go and change of cleanup, they had to go strait to this lecture. That was the big tour, but I believe that we can go pick up our books tomorrow, so many things to look forward to. It was really a great trip, and a wonderful experience!

 Good Night Everyone!