Today was INCREDIBLE! Oh my gosh easily the best day yet. I am going to try my very hardest to do it justice..
For breakfast mi madre fixed me a FAT plate of scrambled eggs and plantains. Deliciousness!
Then our TOURISTA taxis picked us up at 7:30 to head over to Selvatura Canopy Tours for a day of zip-lining through the cloud forest. We had a group of 12, and our taxis were divided up with 9 in one taxi and 3 in the other. Then, once we made it up the trocha, the 3 of us in the second taxi got into the other taxi and our driver peaced out. I just love the taxis. So much.
We got to Selvatura at like 8:15 and the place was packed with fellow touristas. So many rando languages to be heard at a Costa Rica zip-line attraction in the early morning. Also, I could see my breath, which is endlessly fascinating for me. We filled out waivers with our names, ID numbers, and signatures. ID numbers could be your social security number, your passport number, your drivers license number, or your phone number. What? I chose all of the above in hopes my identity would be stolen.
Then they took us into this room that at first glance looked like total chaos but then you realized all of the yelling and harnesses and craziness was a system. Eduardo strapped me up in my harness and bright orange helmet and handed me my hardcore gloves. I asked him how I looked and he gave me the once-over and said "guapita." But what's new, right?
I was very confused by the gloves because they were construction gloves reenforced with a fat slab of leather on the palms. I quickly gained an immense appreciation for them, though. When you zip line, you sit in your harness with your knees up and your ankles crossed and you have your non-dominant hand on the rope connecting your harness to the cable (aka your polyester life support) and your dominant hand on the cable behind your head. So that fat slab of leather ensures that the friction doesn't burn your palms to a bloody mess. Yay for weird gloves.
We started out with a baby line just to practice. Then we got to the good stuff. Oh my gosh it was so amazing. I zip lined through clouds, above the trees of the rainforest. What? Yes. That happened. This is my life. There were 15 lines. The highest altitude was 300 feet, and the longest line was 2100 feet long. The longer ones were awesome because being in the cloud made it so that you couldn't see very far in front of you. It looked like the line just cut off mid-air. It didn't, though. The shorties were fun, too. You got to zip through all the flora and fauna and all things beautiful and green. And there is nothing more amazing that flying through the air and looking down on a rainforest. It was breathtaking and made me feel so alive. At one point, I just had to scream "PURA VIDA!"
And at other points, I just had to scream. Yes, I was that girl--the screamer of the group. At the end of every line when I was sure I was going to hit the tree and intermittently on the really fast lines. And most of all on the Tarzan swing. The Tarzan swing made me a woman. Let me explain: you climb up about 30 feet of stairs, get strapped in, and fall. Straight-up fall 30 feet. I was FREAKING out. Cayman, being the rockstar she is, jumped to the front of the line. Then Cheesecake, our fearless leader. Then Deany Weany (if you haven't noticed by now Dean and Kathy are like the most BA grandparents ever). Then me. Our favorite guide Jeff was giving me a hard time telling me not to cry and that only 2 people die a week as the other guide clipped me in, bent my knees, and pushed me to my death. As I plummeted towards the ground, all I could think was death, death, death and then I started to swing and life was good again. And you know I screamed bloody murder for those death seconds. Then Eduardo caught me with the black tube thingy and brought me back to land. Sweet sweet land. My hands were cracked out shaking, but I couldn't stop smiling.
There are three levels of lines. The level of a line is determined by how hard it is to break at the end of the line. Breaking requires you to pull down with your dominant hand on the cable, thereby assuming that a person has at least a minimal level of upper body strength. Unfortunately for our guides, I am profoundly lacking in the upper body strength department. So, instead of me slowing myself down before getting to the platform, I came in FULL speed, bracing myself for the tree that seemed to be my inescapable fate. I nearly killed Jeff a few times, but somehow he managed to catch me before I hit the tree every time. He laughed at my lack of breaking skills a lot, and told me that I was putting an awful lot of trust in someone that I didn't even know. Well, we're bffl now, Jefferson Rodriguez and I. His personal fave was when I literally did not even try to brake and ended up slamming my knee into the cable when he caught me. Cayman said that she could tell it was a bad landing from the other end of the line. Yikes.
So three hours and one and a half miles of zip line later, we were all on such a high. I love today!
For lunch we went to this seafood restaurant in Santa Elena. We pre-ordered our meals yesterday. I got the fish meal that came with beans, rice, salad, and plantains. We all got chips and bean dip for appetizers and ice cream with chocolate syrup (AHH!) and cherries for dessert. And weird but delicious juice with lots of foam and lots of pineapple pulp. The fish was so wonderful. I just went to town.
Then we walked around Santa Elena for a couple of hours. I feel like I have drawn today out a lot already though so that's all you need to know about those couple of hours.
We got back to campus a couple of hours ago and I passed out on the couch in the biblioteca for a blissful 20 minutes. I have done nothing productive as far as school work is concerned, but it's whatever. There's always tomorrow.
peace love and yes this is my life
