The next day we got up early again to avoid the cruise crowds. I must admit sleep was a bit evasive this trip. I didn't sleep well the night before - I woke up and all I could smell was musty, bad ventilation tropics. I should be used to it - heck I lived on an island for over a year.... but it's been a while and I only had 3 Claritin with me - eerrr....
We trekked our way to the zipline center to start our day. As with everything on this trip- we lucked out with a private expedition on the zipline. Our guides - Cesar and Byron (go figure) helped us with our helmets and harnesses. My mom - her stomache was all topsy turvy in anticipation of this venture. We took a few picutres (this is about when we realised my camera was acting up) and down the trail we went. I had done some research before the trip to assure my mom (OK - mostly myself) that there wouldn't be some crazy rope ladder to the starting point of the zipline. I had done a ropes course a little over two years ago and one of the hardest parts was the rope ladder at the beginning. This stated pretty clearly - walk up to starting platform. What it didn't expand upon was the "up" part... I think it was some 80 steps - at least that's what I thought I heard them say. You can imagine the effect on the blood flow, heart rate, and stomache that had.
We trekked our way to the zipline center to start our day. As with everything on this trip- we lucked out with a private expedition on the zipline. Our guides - Cesar and Byron (go figure) helped us with our helmets and harnesses. My mom - her stomache was all topsy turvy in anticipation of this venture. We took a few picutres (this is about when we realised my camera was acting up) and down the trail we went. I had done some research before the trip to assure my mom (OK - mostly myself) that there wouldn't be some crazy rope ladder to the starting point of the zipline. I had done a ropes course a little over two years ago and one of the hardest parts was the rope ladder at the beginning. This stated pretty clearly - walk up to starting platform. What it didn't expand upon was the "up" part... I think it was some 80 steps - at least that's what I thought I heard them say. You can imagine the effect on the blood flow, heart rate, and stomache that had.
We had a lesson as to how the multiple safety lines work, where to place the right hand, the left hand, etc... And off we went. OK - Cesar went first. He would be the one to catch us at the other end. Poor guy - my stopping technigue was pretty non-existent. Most of the pictures I look intense as I know I am not slowing down any time soon and that poor guy is my buffer. I went first and my mom followed. She on the toher hand had no problem stopping. Her problem was keeping the momentum and not stopping in the middle of the line. She did stop on the longest highest line about 3 to 5 feet out. She claimed the gloves were too big and she couldn't feel that her hand was dragging - aaahhh too much going on in the brain.....
I hate to say that I was so concentrated on the zipping and the broken camera that I didn't do much looking out over the tree tops. OK you really don't see over the tree tops - we were in line with the tree tops. Most of my focus was just zipping. It was a blast! I would have climbed the hill a few times over to go a few more times....
And the only hard part was the second or third platform. You entered on one level and had to take steps/ladder down about 4 or 5 feet to another platform. The steps were narrow and steep - I attempted to go down them facing forward - all the safety line and ropes fastening me to the tree made it difficult to turn around and go down backwards. But in retrospect that probably would have been easier. THEN when you are on the lower platform you need to climb up onto this table about 3 feet high to start the next line. OH and to fasten the main safety line to the zipline I found myself standing on tiptoes - a test of ones balance - to get started. This was the longest and highest run. It was GREAT once I got started.... And again - stopping is a continual problem.
And my mom? She did great. She eventually went ahead of me a few times. And then we got to repel out of the tree. A great little adventure for a Tuesday morning.
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