Day 38: Canyoneering in Costa Rica

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I was awake relatively early this morning as our hotel is right on a busy street and given we don't have air-con, the windows are open to let at least some cooler air in. After catching up on blogs, we went out for breakfast at the My Coffee cafe (same place we enjoyed an arvo coffee from yesterday). After tentatively ordering pancakes, Rach changed her mind when she saw the dessert menu...berry crepes (with ice-cream I might add!). I chose an omelet and was happy when it was brought out with fresh fruit and muffins too! So we broke our fast ensuring that we were well fed ahead of our massive adrenaline-rushing excursion.

We were picked up at 10am and taken to our waiting 4WDs. We scrambled onto the back of the trays where they had added benches for the would-be canyoneerers. The drive up the mountain was particularly bumpy...a 'Costa Rican massage' our funny little local guides pointed out (amongst heaps of other one-liners). The heavens then decided to open and a tropical downpour begun, well I suppose its not called a rainforest for nothing.

We stopped off to drop off our bags, get changed (and have one last nervous bathroom stop!) and got kitted out with our canyoneering gear; harness, helmet and wet soggy gloves. We were all set, Rach and I, and 4 others from our tour group. We had a couple of photos taken by the 'paparazzi' (another one-liner) and we jumped back onboard our 4WDs for the final short trip to the start of the tour.

We all stood nervously in a line as the guide gave us a safety demonstration on flat ground, using a rope that was just tied to a tree. He made it all sound really easy; feet shoulder-width apart, lean back, let the rope take your wait and feed it using your braking hand, using the other hand to balance yourself. Simple? Before we knew it we were walking towards our first canyon traverse. I was the only person to stick my hand-up when the guide asked, 'do we have any left-handers?'. Apparently they need to feed the rope through the harness a different way otherwise the brake didn't work when you squeeze the rope. Hmmm, I better remind them everytime I get strapped in.

The first traverse was relatively small, about 12m down however was designed so we can get a feel for ropes, putting our lives out of our hands and into the strength of the nylon feeding through our harness. It was surprisingly ok once you got over the fear of leaning back and soon we got the hang of walking down the cliff backwards and before we knew it, we'd made it down the bottom. Whoop! First traverse done!!

The fist pumping was short lived however as we wandered through the canyon to our next platform. What lay down below was a 45m drop down to the canyon floor below. I got strapped in, making sure I emphasized 'Left handed!' It was a little nerve racking but managed to swing out from the platform, keeping my feet attached and letting my weight rest upon the ropes and harness. I pushed off with my knees, letting my brake hand relax and begun repelling down the cliff. It was so awesome!! Not disregarding that I'm completely shit-scared of heights, what made it easier was the fact that you were either looking up or directly at the cliff face looking for your next landing spot. I got to a point about 10m below the platform where the cliff went inwards and directly below you was nothing but air. At this point the guide yelled out, 'push off and grab the safety!'. So I pushed off and grabbed the black 'safety' strap attached to the rope above me. You can sort of guess what happened next as gravity does what it does and shot me down towards the canyon floor (all the while the guides making sure I didn't go splat on the rocks below!). Wowzaa!! What an adrenaline rush. I stood at the bottom and watched Rach perform the same. She looked like a pro and there was no hesitation on the final push off as she grabbed the safety and headed downwards.

The next thing our guide says to us is 'are you all ready to get wet?' Hmmm. Up to this point we were relatively high-and-dry except for the cold sweats that had started at the top of the 2^nd traverse. We walked down through the canyon, with running water streaming down between our legs. We stopped at a point where our guide was balancing between the canyon walls, and what looked like a little puddle down below him. He turns around and says 'time to cannonball', leaps up, tucks in and spashes into the water below! Righto, guess its us next. He proved to us that the water was infact about neck deep and we proceeded one by one doing cannonballs into this puddle, completely nuts!!

Now that we were sufficiently wet, we didn't mind walking down through the canyon with the water slapping at our ankles (before this, we were careful not to step into a puddle!). We came up to the next obstacle, what looked like just a challenging climb down this little waterfall was anything but. We were a bit skeptical when we saw one of the guides laying down in the water at the top of the waterfall creating a human-dam. We clambered down and were told to all sit down, one behind the other. With the paparazzi guy ready, we knew what was about to come. Whoooshh!! We were hit by a wall of water, we started off trying to smile and wave however it quickly turned into a battle for survival (well, a battle to stop getting swept down the canyon).

The 3^rd traverse was down a little waterfall and particularly difficult given it was really slippery. It wasn't too bad though and only about 15m down. We were all in preparation for the big-daddy; the 4^th and final traverse down a 70m cliff. We arrived at the platform and our hearts skipped a beat looking down off the edge of the platform, holy moly it was high. I was about the 3^rd in line to go and walked up to the plate. I got myself strapped, with my mind working frantically about the challenge ahead when I remembered 'oh yeah, I'm left-handed!' The guide fixed up the ropes, I spun around with my back to the cliff, took a couple of deep breaths and pushed off. When I was just below the platform I pushed off again and grabbed the safety which can only mean one thing; gravity. I flew down losing my stomach in the process and the cliff face hurtling upwards as I glided downwards. I got my feet back on terra firma and took a massive sigh, survived! I watched Rach go again and heard her squeal all the way down and giggled to myself.

That brought an end to our canyoneering adventures. We had to hike about 20 mins back up to the canyoneering headquarters to get changed into, well, hmmm, we forgot to bring a change of dry clothes. We got a nice lunch of rice, beans, chicken curry and salad. I quite enjoyed my lunch except Rach had turned up her nose after eating half her plate and finished with a muesili bar that we'd brought with us.

We were 4WD'ed back down the mountain and got back to our hotel around 2pm. John and Pietre, a couple of guys in our tour had noticed that there was a gym just up the road from our hotel so we went for a quick workout, still feeling the adrenaline pumping after our morning adventures. Rach stayed at the hotel and worked on the previous days' photos.

For dinner, we decided to head to Soda Viquez after our Canadian friends, Pietr and Marina had investigated Trip Advisor and chosen this local spot. Rach and I both had steak. Mine was 'Steak Costa Rican style' which was a massive strip of beef wrapped around cheese and ham with a mushroom sauce. Was a bizaare combination but tasted really nice! We were so chocker-block full after dinner that we headed home ready for our travel day tomorrow.

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Photos

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breakfast...or dessert??

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the entire canyoneering crew

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our crew

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Traverse number #1

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survived!!

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water.........fall!!!!

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picture of concentration ahead of the big-daddy traverse!

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stop messing about and concentrate woman!

Comments

[Mumi]

Photos
Totally awesome pics! Glad it was you, not me!

[pater stewy]

Looks fantastic guys glad mum and I are not there with you love to you both