I moved into "our dorm", as we fondly called it during that time when almost nobody had a job, so we had lots of fun and thought little about the future =)

July 8.

Today, for example, we went on a hike. To who-knows-where. (well, no, I think it was supposed to be to some waterfalls). It was almost evening. When we got there it turned out the last bus leaves in about 4 hours... and we still had to hike up the mountain almost through the jungle... But nobody was upset, and we went.

It all started out wonderfully. We climbed the mountain, found berries that tasted like strawberries but grew on bushes... and gorged ourselves on them. They kept appearing all the time while we walked and it was impossible to stop =) As soon as we scrambled to the very top of the mountain and entered the hunting grounds (that's when "Dangerous" is written every 100 meters), we realized we were a little lost... It was getting dark... The sunset in the mountains was, of course, beautiful, but we had lost two guys, and two more went off to look for them... They (the girls), to our indignation, were handed over to some hunter who led us out of the woods... We got home by ourselves...

As it turned out later, the guys survived too.

July 12.

Such a positive outcome clearly didn't satisfy anyone, and we set off for new adventures =) This time the initiator was Nikita, who called us in the morning... and everyone rushed off to another waterfall.

We stopped at Taco Bell (I'm starting to get used to Mexican food)))... and then to a very beautiful lookout point where we tried to take at least one photo without hair in our mouths... which we couldn't because of the strong wind))))

We drove for quite a while before a several-hour walk through the jungle with some river crossings began ))

We walked for about an hour and a half... We arrived... the "waterfall" is about 4 meters high, nothing extraordinary. But there's a rock there that you can apparently jump from. At first we jumped from a low one — three meters. It was even fun. Then the guys got carried away toward a ten-meter slippery ledge. It's very awkward to jump — nothing to push off from, you can't see where you'll land. People below applaud and whoop — no one except the Russians dared. Katya followed the guys up. For no apparent reason — she's our rescuer, she swims well. She jumped and those who were below had a lump in their throats... she hit the water very badly (on her back)... she surfaced — her face turned pale, her eyes rolled back. They pulled her onto the shore — she couldn't walk. And we were in the middle of the jungle. We called 911, they, of course, answered "we'll come right away." OK, we asked how much a helicopter would cost (there was no other way) — they said — $3000. The guys carried her on their backs in turns.

Katya moaned, they kept jostling her. They put her on a stretcher (made from towels) — carried her. The locals helped — showed a quicker route, and in the end loaded her into a truck and drove her to our car.

Scene at the hospital. They bring Katya (without documents, because Ulyana and I couldn't find them). They keep her there for a whole day. It turns out she has a displaced vertebra. They forbid her from physical exertion, prescribe a course of treatment and send her home... Katya comes back with a bill for $4,000 (I never understood what so extraordinary they did there besides an IV and X-rays to charge that much). Of course, her name and surname were written with five mistakes, so she won't be paying anything. For about two weeks we gave her massages in turns at home, now she's running around like before.

Sacred falls.

This time we went to the "deadly" falls. It all started with me desperately wanting to get out of Waikiki? and Yurka suggesting to go with Mark to a waterfall. (it should be added that Denis wanted to come with us, he had only recently moved in and before that had lived on the beach in a tent)... but he couldn't handle it and left on his own that same night, and then we didn't see him for 2 days because he got lost in the mountains. Mark, by the way, has scoured the whole island and he would have been the perfect person for hikes if he didn't have the habit of eating in supermarkets... he ate some sushi and got caught, because of that we were delayed about an hour.... before that we had been delayed several more hours for other strange reasons that I don't remember now...

The main feature of Sacred Falls is that the waterfall is in a gorge where rocks fall from above.... and several years ago the park was closed because those falling rocks killed several dozen people. But we went anyway. No rocks fell, the waterfall turned out to be big and beautiful =) Apart from the DO NOT WALK signs every 100 meters and small fruit arrangements that looked like offerings, which we saw a couple of times, everything was simply amazing)))