Extreme zip lining! Extreme hiking! These are the things we were promised by the brochure at our hotel desk for Arenal mundo aventura.
Our sassy receptionist recommended their zip lines – they were the fastest and the best, according to her. She promised us fun and no regrets, and with her help, we booked our trip for today.
And so, after a delicious breakfast sprinkled with bee assaults, we hopped in the minivan and rattled down the road to our zip lines.
First, there was zip lining school. Excellent, I thought, as I would not like to fall off the zip line or get stuck in the middle.
You get a little leather glove for your dominant hand. This trails behind you as you zoom down the line, and to brake, you pull straight down.
Ok, straight down, think I can manage that.
Don’t put your hand too close or you’ll slow down, and don’t squeeze either, as that doesn’t work. Also, don’t brake too early, or you’ll get stuck.
This is getting harder…
For your other hand, you wear a white Michael Jackson glove and hold your gear in front of you. This glove’s main purpose was to be incredibly itchy.
Then came the tricky part: what to do with your legs. You need to cross them in front of you and hold your knees up, sort of like sitting pretzel style, except you’re a pretzel flying through the air hundreds of feet above trees, waterfalls, and death.
So basically, be a flying pretzel. If you aren’t a pretzel, you won’t go fast enough and you’ll get stuck.
There are a lot of things to remember. I am gonna get stuck. Or die. Or both.
The instructor taught us the requisite hand signals and also how to pull ourselves along if we did manage to get stuck. They also said don’t get stuck, it’s hard work.
Thanks guys!
We were fitted with our harness, which was tight and gave us lumps in funny places. My short running shorts were all up in my grill something fierce, but with enough wiggling, I managed to balance safety with bunches of fabric and bared skin against harness and I was good to go.
We piled into a school bus from the states circa 1980. The bus had a lot of really old signs: behave as though you would in a classroom, don’t talk too loudly so the driver can focus, pupils will refrain from drinking, eating, and smoking on the bus. Damn those smoking school kids!
The bus chugged, bumped, swayed, and clunked its way up the mountain. There were a few times we passed around horses and a tractor, but somehow, el autobus made it to a tower and let us all off.
They segregated us into two groups: blue for the learning zip lines plus the extreme seven, and silver for the seven extreme courses.
We had silver.
Was this a mistake? What have we done?
We are so gonna die.
Yep.
Fearfully, we climbed up and up and up a tower.
“This is our highest line!” Our chirpy guide proclaimed. We all hung back, not wanting to be the first off this very scary metal platform perched on top of a peak. The photographer dude hopped on the line, flipped backwards, and took off.
Easy. Maybe. One of the Canadian guys shuffled forward and went first. Much to my surprise, no death occurred!
Finally, it was my turn. The lady clipped me in, reminded me to assume the position, and released me to fly down, down, down, across the valley and over the trees.
It was amazing! The view was breathtaking, with a waterfall thundering below and Costa Rican jungle sprawling away to my right.
Guy at the end signaled me to brake. I did it! I was unclipped at the end and was not dead. I was alive, and it was fantastic! Lauren lived too, and didn’t start spinning or stop in the middle.
Next please.
We did the rest of our lines and hiked in between. The views were gorgeous, and Lauren only got a little stuck at the end of the longest line. We zipped between trees, over waterfalls, over trees, and over fields.
At the end, we viewed a traditional Maleku village, which had crafts for sale. We were taught how to say hello (capi capi!) and they gave us fermented sugar cane and fruit drinks.
Sweaty and sticking to all the things, we ate lunch and then headed back to the hotel pool. The cool water and waterfall was a relief and we were able to relax for a few hours before super rain began pouring down on us.
Instead of venturing into town, we went to the pizza joint across the street and fed our kitty buddy some cheese.
Since we don’t have a go pro (what is wrong with us?) or a safe way to transport some form of camera, pics of zip lining will come later! The pics we purchased are on a cd and neither of us has a method to view them until we are back…
Next up: canoeing on lake Arenal!