Grand waterfall and Dinosaurs

Grand waterfall

We booked a tour to go to the cathedral waterfall on horse back. We were told to be up front at 15 before 1, and we didnt end up leaving tell after 2. While we were waiting we got to spend some time with the horses that we would be ridding. The poor things didnt not look good at all, a few were bleeding and all were really skinny. We were joined by a group going out to zipline, so we took the truck out to the beggining of the hike and would ride back.

Starting right at the beggining of our hike we got to learn about plants and incects as we walked. We heard lots of cicadas all around the forest as we walked, and saw thier exoskeleton on the underside of alot of leaves. When cicadas are breaking out of thier old skins is when they make that loud high-pitched buzzing noise.

The hike is short and not bad, slightly loose rocks but as not muddy even with the rain they were getting. If you are in good sole shoes there wont be any issues ( I was in thin sole water shoes I do not recomend this!)

There is a blue river along this hike, where two rivers join together and a waterfall flows into it as well. While the iconic blue was not as visible in the overcast day, you can see the different colors from all three water sources. Rocks from the river coming from the volcanoes are orange and white where the water sits on them due to the deposits of copper and other minerals in the water. The Celeste blue river is actually an optical illusion, that is created by these minerals and particles leaking into the river. These are only found where there is underground volcanic activity. Some say that it is calcium carbonate, sulfur or aluminum silicates that cause this blue water illusion. Fish cant live in these waters, due to the sediments floating in the water.

A short hike from here we came up to the Grand waterfall. After admiring it and taking some pictures, we learned this was the waterfall they thought we wanted to do the tour for. They got confused because though their website says they offer horse back rides to the Cathedral waterfall they do not. This waterfall has a pool around the bottom allowing for swimming and relaxing in the water. After splashing around a bit in the water we all agreed that we did not want to ride those poor horses back. We road in the truck back to the resort and asked to book for the Cathedral waterfall the next day. Though we learned that if you have any problems you the hike can be really rough so the next day we decided to skip doing that hike as well.

DINOSAURS

The dinosaur park is the reason we decided to drive up to the blue river resorts to begin with! We love dinosaurs! Sadly we forgot RJ, Rex Jr (See Kenya for Rj and his own story!) on this trip. We didn't have as much time as we would of wanted to be able to see these large life size dinosaurs and hear their roars! They made us wait around 45 min to go on our tour, due to what we assume was under staffing. You can drive yourself but one of the rules for renting our car was not to drive though water and there was a small creek going over the road on the way. This left us only 20 min to see all of the dinosaurs. There are 29 dinosaurs here! You can see them all on a short 1 kilometer hike that creates some suspense at what will be around the next corner! And then you turn around to a life size dinosaur moving and making noise at you!

We walked very quickly snapping pictures as we went, our poor guide trying to keep up with us and show all the things he was supposed to (we may of ran ahead.) Nestled next to one of the dinosaurs our guide did point out a little humming bird nest that was so amazing to see! We were also disappointed at their lack of dinosaurs in the gift shop at the resort but we did leave with some dinosaur shirts!