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Published: December 18th 2012
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Suicide Shower
For those of you that know a little about electricity - this is an instant hot water shower head. Note the green ground wire. Remember to wear sandals in the shower. The next part of our road trip brought us to Jaco. A bustling little town on the Pacific Ocean, half way down the coast. The beach in my opinion wasn't as nice as Tamarindo, but stunning sunsets and great little town.
Out friend from Alejuala came and visited us for a night, and we had a good time with him hanging by the pool and he took us to a little ice cream store called Pop's. Reminded me of a Costa Rican version of Dairy Queen.
We met up with our new friends and they invited us to go zip lining with them. When they first invited us, I said “sure!" then proceeded to lose 2 night’s sleep.
On the day of the terrifying event, I had pretty much convinced myself i wasn’t going to go. After all Google said there had been 3 deaths from zip linning in the past century, and they were all from peoples stupid mistakes....
I had to talk myself through each step of the way. First thought was.."just get in the taxi and you can always just hang out in the lobby while the rest of the gang go" check......ok, just
Moved right in with us
Found in the spare room fast asleep! go and get geared up and you can always just take it all off again....check.....ok jump in the truck and ride up to the top of the mountain, you can always ride back down with the driver....check....hike up some more by foot...still walking distance back down the mountain....check...omg the first guy is getting hooked up to the zip line.....that's ok, you can always get "unhooked" and walk back down the mountain...now the beads of sweat are popping but I bravely allow him to hook me up to the line.....last thought was....it's ok, if you don't like it, or your heart stops you can always get off at the first platform and walk back...WRONG! Once you zip to the first platform you are now 150 feet in the canopy of the trees. Can you say COMMITETED? But it was ok because I absolutely loved it. There isn't much that's more exciting than wondering if your harness is going to unravel, or the trees are going to collapse , or the zip line itself has just had one too many zippers, or the most obvious would be that a monkey has decided to unscrew everything because he's damned tired of these tourists
Wild Poinsettia Tree
After all...they are a tropical plant! Right invading HIS territory, All the while flying through the tree tops and dodging the slapping palms and branches. That is the closest I will ever come to flying, it was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. Almost as nerve racking as the zipping was the platforms you come to land on. They were rickety, no handrails or ledges, just straight down to the jungle floor. You are always strapped to something though. A photographer came with us and took some incredible pictures and videos of us, which you will find in this blog. .
If you braked too much you had to haul your ass to the platform yourself by hand over hand pulling yourself along the cable. Ian was a pro at it, and landed like a cat on a fence after each zip. You can see from his pictures he was concentrating very hard on the success of his landings!
We stayed in a beautiful condo in Jaco and had some of the luxuries from home, like a real fridge, dishcloths and more than one towel for the whole place.....oh and hot water in the kitchen!
Now we're back to the Costa Rican adventure
Wild Hydrangea
Guess they have to grow natural somewhere? and living the "typical"life in the central mountains in a town called Atenas. We did yoga this morning outside with the palms swaying softly above our head and the birds twittering and flying about.
Already meeting some nice people and having more adventures!
Until next time!! "Pura Vida"
Karen
PS.
Karen was very brave and I am so proud of her. We have been talking about the zipping ever since and she really loved it. The guys that ran the place looked like Tico bikers with tattoos and ear rings but they turned out to be real gentlemen. I got to speak with them and they have built these lines all over Central America. Hard work and dangerous hanging off trees with monkeys and snakes for company. They were always tied off and had us always tied off. “Safety first” as one of them said.
Cheers, Ian
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