Day 8 – You were truly made to feel apart of the family here as your morning alarm clock was someone jumping on you in bed (usually Laz’s niece or nephews, and Laz himself). We were supposed to be making our way to Punta Gorda today, but there was just no way that we could leave this paradise, so we prolonged our stay for another day. I discovered my new favourite food this morning, ‘fry jacks’. Milli (Laz’s sister) definitely cooks up a storm as she is up before sunrise cooking and prepares everything over a fire. One of Laz’s nephews (Dennis) took us on a nature walk. I could not get over how much they live off of the land. Dennis, younger than us, was a wealth of knowledge and taught us everything there is to know about the plants in the area (okay, maybe not everything, but you know what I mean). Plants were used as fish hooks, birth control, anti-venom to snake bites, tea, spices, and to cure malaria to name a few. We spent the majority of the day on a waterfall tour with Laz. I would have been impressed with getting to explore and play in one waterfall, but I can’t even count how many we were able to experience! The hike down one was a little scary (I still don’t know how we walked what we did in the dark the night before!) and you are literally walking down a waterfall. Laz and Dennis had spent 4 months chiseling out stairs in the rocks for sections of the walk. After a good hike down (playing in caves and waterfalls along the way), we reached the river’s edge. After a lunch break, we made our way along the boulders lining the river to make our way up stream. We then swam across the river and came to the bottom of a series of waterfalls. The view here was breathtaking as it was little waterfalls as far up as you could see, each with a small pool at the bottom. We climbed up quite a ways to the very top, easily entertaining ourselves along the way jumping off of a small waterfall to the pool below and using the smaller waterfalls as personal massagers. We felt like Spiderman climbing up the waterfalls as due to the type of rock and the fact that the moving water kept slippery from building up, we were able to walk up and down angles that you would never normally be able to do, or fall straight down. Quite the optical illusion one might say. We then had to retrace our path back home, although once again, I am sure that I could have spent my entire week playing here. Hard to believe that places like this actually exist. Our pictures just don’t do it justice. Milli made us another unreal dinner, which included us eating rat!! It is known by the locals as ‘royal rat’ (really a huge rodent) and was hunted and killed in the jungle. They showed us another ‘royal rat’ that had been recently killed (about the size of a small dog) and I was thankful I had already eaten it (poor Melissio can’t say the same). Another fun evening of games and star gazing. Wow, we love it here and it seems like each day just keeps getting better.