Triplet

There is something about this place. There is something that happens here, something that always makes me return; here I find peace, I find love.

This place is mystical and I can swear on my life that it holds the secret of the Pura vida, the "pure life". It is the most cultural, traditional and purely Costa Rican place in all the country. It is as if it transports one back to the year of 1960 where the only mean of transportation is on horseback, where money does not matter and where the most important thing was to give to another.

Above all, generosity and respect is what I learn from this community.

In the area they know me as "The Waterfall Man",  and everyone here even has my phone number! The people invite me to weddings, dinners, and lunches that I try to cover with my team to give them professional photos. Whenever they notice that I have returned, the locals treat me like a king, something that I do not know how to thank them enough for.

90% of the time it is cloudy. 

The volcanoes are always heard in the background and through the dense fog you can see the "witch river canyon" where they say one of with the highest concentration of cataracts in Costa Rica hides.

The Triplet is one of them. 

Three generations of locals joined me on this expedition. A lady of 70 years, a mother and her child. All help each other, all live the pure life

The legend states that one day a family was looking for a gray palimito in the  mountains. A zone with three cliffs enabled them from leaving. The Family was trapped.  While trying to escape the mountain, one of them hurt his head, giving him a wound so deep that it bled profusely and he became immobile. The mother, with the help of her three daughters, had to remove the father from the mountain. 

Passing the three cliffs the family encountered this cataract,  which throughout most of the year remains dry. They took the wounded man to wash his head and miraculously the water of the falls healed him.

Apparently the cataract only appears when it is needed most; appearing to help the needy.

The locals cling to this legend, using it as a philosophy for life. They believe that the most needy of people will always be given a hand, and that when the waterfall is truly needed, it will be found. They cling to the Pura Vida because they have lived with it all their lives, they have learned to live with the volcano, with the waterfalls, with the jaguars and with the strangers.

Walking back from the waterfall we always have a conversation about the value of living. I like to listen to them because I know I still have a lot to learn. A waterfall is all they need to be happy, nothing more. The fact that you can experience such pure happiness with so little makes me think of Pura Vida and all its wisdom. 

A pure life that hides in the eyes of a child.

A pure life that belongs to the child we all carry inside,

The child I still am.