Nauyaca

Nauyaca.

I have visited this place four times, each time with different people. I have seen it in all its temperaments. Sunshine, rain, mist and...

This time it was cloudy yet sunny, I was lucky.  

The first time I went to this place was the most memorable. I will always keep that moment in a very special place in my heart; although it left behind a scar. 

Where does the name come from? The locals baptized this place with the name of the the snake, the Bothrops asper... better known as the velvet. Through my time spent traveling on the mountain, I have realized that the worst enemy in these forests is the velvet. The snake if very aggressive and Its bite is considered to be the most poisonous in all the country. Still, the reptile is truly beautiful, growing up to 180 centimeters... they are taller than me!  I am always aware of the snakes and I have been fortunate to see them on a few rare occasions (I am always a little scared).    

Most likely locals named these waterfalls this because the snakes, like the waterfall, are beautiful but they are also very deadly.

In the rainy season, the lower pool has a current of its own that pulls down strongly and according to the myths, some have already been drowned within it.  

If we understand the geographical position of the falls that are located in the valley of the tombs, which is one of the places with the highest density of cataracts in Costa Rica, one realizes how strange it is that there is such an abrupt depression in that place. Also the waterfalls have the feature that they are in an east-west direction making the sun in December hit directly into the falls.

A legend tells us that many years ago, in the summer time, a couple of young lovers climbed on the mountain to find the cataracts losses. In those times the valley of the tombs was only a primary forest, surrounded by cataracts: a complete Eden. The trip was long and they lasted for over three days in the forest. His father had explained to him when he was a small child, the danger of the jaguar and the snake, and that he should always be looking ahead of himself and at the floor and always stay in a group. In case he saw a cat, he should look him in the eye, in the case of the snake: cut off his head.

The young people embarked on their journey through the forest, the route was complicated, but on the second day they reached the falls. "Look !" said the young woman,  dozens of rainbows had formed with the vapor of the cataracts. The beauty of the waterfalls made the young people lose the notion of time, obsessed with the stones of the upper waterfall, they did not realize the time until dusk. The beautiful girl was on the highest stone of the falls when suddenly a giant snake wrapped around her leg and bit her.

It was a velvet. Her partner watched in agony as his beloved fell to the stones, hitting her head and falling into the flow of the waterfall. He ran to catch her but it was too late. Nauyaca had taken his first life and with it the love of a small child.