It’s our big day in the national park, and I am so excited! Everybody has told us how incredible the waterfalls are, and I can’t wait to see for myself.

We start the day with breakfast, included at our hotel. It’s really nice to have a full breakfast waiting for us. I get to relax more than usual. We meet a lovely Indian couple at the next table, who tell us it may be chilly there. We are dressed in shorts and t-shirts. We’ll need to bring our jackets.

The park entrance is only 2 kilometers down the road, and we park in the forest there. It’s already beautiful out here. Then we wait in line to buy tickets for the park. There are lots of people, but it doesn’t seem too crazy. We grab some sandwiches for later because we aren’t sure what the food situation will be here. And our kids are always hungry. 

Walking into the park means crossing a bridge over the freeway, walking through the forest and down a roadway to an entrance gate.

Through the gate, we walk down an exhorbitant number of steps until we see the lake. It’s an incredible aqua color. A crowd is gathered on the dock waiting for the boat. Guess that’s where we’ll start. We take the boat across the river, where there’s another crowd waiting for the next boat that will take us the length of the lake. 

We see our first small waterfalls here, and the kids are excited. The boat is slow and allows us to take in the beauty of the forested hills surrounding the lake.

We arrive in what looks like a large campground. Picnic tables cover the large lawn, and there are so many people. We start on our journey, following course “F” … or “B”. We really aren’t sure. The walkways are narrow and packed with people, walking both ways. Most of the time is spent with people on all sides, like we are slowly moving forward in a line. It’s terrible.

The entire time is like standing in a line for an amusement park, only the scenery is incredible. I wish I could have lifted my head and enjoyed it more than we did. It’s difficult when we’re spending the entire time watching where we step and making sure no one bumps into me or one of the kids, knocking us off the narrow pathways. Yikes.

We finally get up to the main event: the Big Waterfall. It is impressive. After a few minutes of admiring, we start back down. 

Much of the walk is the same way we came up, yet it doesn’t seem quite as busy. I wonder if we just got caught in the middle of ten tour groups earlier. This is still busy, but way more relaxed. 

Back at the base camp, we buy the kids some ice creams. They earned it. Stefan stands in a ridiculously long line for chicken and a beer. It isn’t worth it. But it is nice to sit for awhile in this beautiful place and enjoy. Still note every picnic table is packed, and we are even sharing ours with a group of 4 adults and 5 kids. This place is crazy.  

As we stand in line to take the return trip in the boat, we realize each ticket allows you to ride the boat only once. We can either walk half a kilometer to the bus (and stand in another hectic line), or we can walk the 2 kilometers along the water back to the park entrance. We opt for the latter. It’s calm, with very few people choosing this path. This may be my favorite part of the park today.

Oy falls asleep on Stefan’s shoulders and has to be carried up the stairs to the car. Go Stefan! It starts raining, but we are determined to just get back to the car. It’s refreshing actually.

When we get back home, we collapse on our beds. I now realize just how exhausted my body is. We rest for an hour and a half. The kids watch a movie, Stefan reads the news and I bathe Oliver. He really needs it.  I ask the kids whether they want to go to the park again tomorrow, and it’s a resounding no. Lillian explains that she is ready for a city. This is just walking around some boring forest. Glad everyone is appreciating this experience!

We made a reservation for dinner at another place tonight. The chef himself seats us inside, basically in the kitchen. It’s wonderful. The food is much better here than last night. This place is also very atmospheric. It’s a lovely night. We drive just 7 minutes home and completely crash.