More of Yelapa

Rest of day three,

Strap on the pack, duck under the clothsline, open the bungy chord that closes the gate to the graveyard, through the graveyard, up the hill to the truck. The path is a red orange dirt. Everything else is green and not sort of green, very green, lush and varied. 
Today there are even more people than people that didn't really fit in the truck yesterday.
This resulted in the following reactions. Carl bagged it and headed back to the room. Four others decided to hike the launch. (their gliders where in the truck though. That's three miles and two thousand feet!) The truck was then quite roomy in comparision to the last ride. However, after a few minutes we caught up with the hikers that, for some reason, had changed their minds. Once again it was cram-o-rama in the truck. I was standing up in the back holding a rope tied to the front bumper, ducking branches.

At launch there was five mintues of perfect breeze to launch in. Darren wisely got out there right away and was rewarded with a nice flight. Soon after he got on the beach he radioing up, "are you guys coming?". The wind had turned to super fussy. Over the next few hours the wind reluctantly let a few pilots off every twenty minutes. However, as some were trying to no wind reverse launches, not every opportunity was taken. The fun really begain when one pilot did a low energy launch, bounced his butt off of the hill, sort of flew through bush and definitly did not fly through the tree. He disappeared out of sight to the sound of cracking branches. There is a moment where one askes themselves, "What will the next few minutes of MY life be like?".  There is a bunch of running around, yelling and genral commotion. He is not responding. That's not good. But then... Wait there is a faint voice. He fine.
Now, going into the jungle to fish someone's glider out of tree is not something to rush into. You can come out with quite Collection of parasites. Amazingly enough he got not only himself but his glider out with minimum fuss. Finally my chance came. I bailed on my first launch. I didn't like it, I stopped. I liked try two just fine. I flew out with the clouds just few hundred feet over my head.

Back on the beach I rejoin the group. They have heard that something was up on radio. A little story telling is needed then completed. At Darren's we have some coconut milk from some coconuts Darren knocked out of a tree. And then it's off to snorkel. This time the whole gang goes. We float around looking at fish.

Tonight is pizza.

Late in the night sitting on the balcony. There is the sound of the waves and rolling calls of the jungle insects. The group has split up to, walk, sleep, play poker, check out a dance. I'm sitting here writing. This balcony seems to stick out into the air, three sides of it look out over either forest or ocean. There's a little quite time now, a little time reflect. I could have gone a lot of places in life but the best of life is when you're glad you've ended up where you are.

Day four 

I'm sitting on the pier reviewing the pictures I've taken today. Two little boys press up on either side of me, peering into my camera. One is blowing up and then releasing the air out of a ballon, in my ear. He names everything he can recognize as I scroll through the pictures.
I woke up to rain again today. The sky over the ocean was black to the horizon. The road to launch is wet, the clouds were often below launch. Once again, not normal. Got on the radio and started working on a plan B. There is a waterfall up the valley. I had never been there and there has been some interest in going. This became the new plan. At Darren's place we sorted out who was going, who was going back to bed and how much money was lost at the poker game last night. (not much.)
Us hikers get  going. That would be Trang (name now spelled right) Darren Cindy and I. The hike is about two hours in and another two back out. The trail goes up the river. The further up we go the more we leave behind the part of Yelapa that is design to accomodate tourist and the more we enter the part that is of the locals and about the locals. The store fronts become quite funky, just the open side of a cinder block buildings. There are sad and bored looking horses tied to posts. All the chickens are free range in the fact that they are everywhere. The stone walk way becomes dirt. (The horses providing new proto-dirt.) We walk past the school. The kids, in uniform, outside playing. Further up the river the houses space out. The jungle becomes more of a presence. Trang, who is native to Vietnam, is pointing out the various fruit trees. There were a lot of mango trees. Alas, the mangos were green and the size of the end of my thumb. Now we  are a long way up the river. The path is a lot smaller. The houses get very rustic and not in a quaint way. As I peer further into the brush I can see the ruins of adondon homes. One has a satellite dish attached to a pole leaned up again the side of it. Finally, after becoming tired and sweaty, we arrive at wooden gate that has "waterfall" painted on it in bright green paint. It is locked, we climb under.
Now we really are in the jungle. There are big hanging vines strangling trees, macraws squaking overhead, the soil of the poor condition of having every nutrient sucked out of it. I can hear the roaring of the falls. The trail is very indistict. We're climbing over rocks hanging onto trees. But, here in the middle of nowhere, the last ten feet of path to the water is crisply set stone stairs. ?
Darren and I strip down to shorts and pile into the pool beneithe the falls. We both have waterproof cameras and are trying to take pictures while dog paddling. I climb into a side passage that has little steam coming out of it. The rocks are slippery. In a ways there rock walls on either side. Trees are drooped over the top like wet spegetti, while their roots braid themselves down the sides. It was one of throughs rare serendipitous moments. 
The hike is revesred. Thanks to clothes made out of oil I'm bone dry by the time I get back.