Lesson on Fear

The water was rather cold. I had hiked down a hill, jumped in a lagoon; swam across it, climbed over volcanic rocks, and began to swim across another lagoon. The view was beautiful. This was rainbow falls. Usually tourist would be at the top of the waterfall, gazing over the scenery per the instruction if a your guide; but, because I'm not tourist, but rather a travler--my group of friends and I decided to get up close and experience rainbow falls like no other. I was super excited, and my friend raj was just as pumped as I was. We swam across the last lagoon, and found ourself at the bottom of Rainbow Falls. While the pressure of the water was too strong to stand directly under, I spent just enough time near the edge that I could feel splashes of the water on my back and arm. This was surreal. We were in Rainbow Falls. 

A short while later, after some splashing, yelling in excitement, and cannonballs into the lagoon, we noticed a cliff to the left of the water fall. Thanks to Ky; who had jumped off the cliff, making realize it was there, we all knew it was something that we had to do. Raj and I began following after Madison and Christina (who were in front of us) climbing up the cliff. The cliff was surrounded by brush and vines whic created a net like ladder for us to navigate up. I guess I was so excited I forgot about my fear of heights. In the back of my mind I thought I would just climb up the cliff and then climb down, but the more I climbed the less I thought. Excitement it was, until I reached the top and realized this was a one way up one way down" type of scenario. The whole time I recount myself yelling repeatedly "there's no such thing as fear, except fear itlsef." I kept telling that until Maddison corrected me saying "Brian, that's wrong! (Laughing) the only thing to fear is fear itself." I then began yelling that! By the time I had reached the too--Splash! Maddison and Christina had jumped. The time time I saw maddie, was when her head reseurface from the turquoise lagoon. I grabbed raj and told him we had to jump together.