Now let me paint the full picture for you. The river was somewhere in the Dominican Republic in July 2005. I was with a large group in small cars, and we rode up many winding mountain roads before finally stopping at what appeared to be a place with no significant attraction. Then we were told we were going to walk up a little path by the river to see a waterfall. There had been a hurricane that passed over the island only a day or two prior, so the raging river was truly at it's peak of flow and force. It was so loud I remember having to yell at each other, and we could still hardly communicate. Now, this apparently was a pretty popular tourist attraction, but tourist attractions in the Dominican Republic are not like those in the US. There are no people to give tours, no signs or directions, and really no sense that anyone was responsible for making the path (and the bridge) safe. We simply trusted our fearless leader, a missionary who had lived there for a few years, and trotted down the path towards the first of several suspension bridges. You can see in these next few pictures that each person had a different approach to crossing the bridges. Lauren, for instance, was literally fearing for her life, clinging to both sides of the bridge, and crying. She almost didn't make it. John, on the other hand, is obviously either really confident or just not altogether paying attention to what is going on around him. You will notice that Lauren is actually on the much less scary looking bridge. My approach was somewhere in between, cautious but basically confident, though I don't know what I was confident in. Needless to say, this was an adventure I will not soon forget. We did make it to the waterfall, and believe it or not, it was actually worth risking our lives to see it.
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