Costa Rica - Day 4
Day 4: Tuesday Oct 14
We got up early the next morning and had a delicious breakfast at the lodge. The lodge is an "ecolodge" meaning they recycle everything, all the food is organic, etc. It's very nicely done! It was still pouring rain, of course. It hadn't yet stopped from the day before.
Regardless of the rain, we got in a van and were driven to the Selvatura Park. And what did we do at the park? THIS!!
Yes, we went zip lining. SO FUN. There were 11 lines. We climbed up to the first platform and then went flying all through the valleys. It was amazing! Some of them were so high up that we were well above all of the trees. One of them was so long you couldn't see the other end at all. We were safetly doubly strapped to the steel cable. We were instructed to "assume the position" - sort of seated, ankles crossed, "strong hand" behind your head. And we were told to brake if we saw the guide on the end waving at us. We had gloves with thick rubber pads to pull down on the steel cable to brake. I'm not sure how well I actually did at this since I feel like I always crashed into the guide. Good thing they had a secondary brake system.
Oh, and it was raining too, so all that water was splattering in my face. I couldn't even keep my eyes open sometimes to see whether the guide was waving at me. I was a little concerned about my contacts washing out, but it was all right.
As if this weren't exciting enough, they also had a Tarzan Swing. You climb up a big platform:
And then while you're having second thoughts, they open the gate and push you off the platform. Josh did a video of me doing it... there's screaming involved. But it was exhilarating. They do need to work on the dismount though - in order to stop you, two guides at the bottom basically jump and grab your legs.
After the zip lining, we went on the walkways they had. It's a trail that leads through the rain forest. This is primary rainforest that's never been cut down, so all the plants were much denser than what we saw at Arenal. The trees are enormous! Every once in a while, you'd come across a suspension bridge that would span a little valley:
It's obviously made of steel, but you could still see through the bottom of the bridge. Oh, and it was really high up, like 200 ft.
I was way more scared of the bridges than of the zip line. I know; it makes no sense. And yes, Josh laughed at me a bit. But the bridges would totally sway as you walked on them!! And you're not strapped to anything at all... what can I say? I was scared!
But on the walkways you got to see interesting things, like cool plants, butterflies, and birds. On the zipline, you're going way too fast to see anything. But on the walk, you could take your time to look at stuff. We saw some really interesting plants - enormous fern tree things!
Then we headed back to our hotel for a little respite before heading back out into the rain. We tried hitting up the Cheese Factory, but it was closing so there were no more cheese tours. And we went to the Bat Jungle, but they were in the middle of giving a tour and no personnel could be found. So we just went out for dinner and headed back to our hotel.
Everything was wet.
We tried to dry things out (the main purpose for bringing the hair dryer).
Didn't really work. We gave up and just went to bed.
We got up early the next morning and had a delicious breakfast at the lodge. The lodge is an "ecolodge" meaning they recycle everything, all the food is organic, etc. It's very nicely done! It was still pouring rain, of course. It hadn't yet stopped from the day before.
Regardless of the rain, we got in a van and were driven to the Selvatura Park. And what did we do at the park? THIS!!
Yes, we went zip lining. SO FUN. There were 11 lines. We climbed up to the first platform and then went flying all through the valleys. It was amazing! Some of them were so high up that we were well above all of the trees. One of them was so long you couldn't see the other end at all. We were safetly doubly strapped to the steel cable. We were instructed to "assume the position" - sort of seated, ankles crossed, "strong hand" behind your head. And we were told to brake if we saw the guide on the end waving at us. We had gloves with thick rubber pads to pull down on the steel cable to brake. I'm not sure how well I actually did at this since I feel like I always crashed into the guide. Good thing they had a secondary brake system.
Oh, and it was raining too, so all that water was splattering in my face. I couldn't even keep my eyes open sometimes to see whether the guide was waving at me. I was a little concerned about my contacts washing out, but it was all right.
As if this weren't exciting enough, they also had a Tarzan Swing. You climb up a big platform:
And then while you're having second thoughts, they open the gate and push you off the platform. Josh did a video of me doing it... there's screaming involved. But it was exhilarating. They do need to work on the dismount though - in order to stop you, two guides at the bottom basically jump and grab your legs.
After the zip lining, we went on the walkways they had. It's a trail that leads through the rain forest. This is primary rainforest that's never been cut down, so all the plants were much denser than what we saw at Arenal. The trees are enormous! Every once in a while, you'd come across a suspension bridge that would span a little valley:
It's obviously made of steel, but you could still see through the bottom of the bridge. Oh, and it was really high up, like 200 ft.
I was way more scared of the bridges than of the zip line. I know; it makes no sense. And yes, Josh laughed at me a bit. But the bridges would totally sway as you walked on them!! And you're not strapped to anything at all... what can I say? I was scared!
But on the walkways you got to see interesting things, like cool plants, butterflies, and birds. On the zipline, you're going way too fast to see anything. But on the walk, you could take your time to look at stuff. We saw some really interesting plants - enormous fern tree things!
Then we headed back to our hotel for a little respite before heading back out into the rain. We tried hitting up the Cheese Factory, but it was closing so there were no more cheese tours. And we went to the Bat Jungle, but they were in the middle of giving a tour and no personnel could be found. So we just went out for dinner and headed back to our hotel.
Everything was wet.
We tried to dry things out (the main purpose for bringing the hair dryer).
Didn't really work. We gave up and just went to bed.