Superman

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I believe I last wrote about La Fortuna and the Arenal volcano. That was sweet. Our next stop was Monteverde where we would do the famous zip line canopy tour. We decided to take the jeep-boat-jeep mode of transport there, which consisted of a 4wd taxi to Lake Arenal, a boat across the lake and then another taxi to Monteverde. The roads in the latter section were uncomfortable to say the least and the buses are too on the whole. The vast majority of buses are in fact converted school-buses imported from the U.S. I believe, so they're not the comfiest of things. As normal I struggled with the legroom. We eventually got to Monteverde, checked in to our incredibly expenisve and luxurious hostel 'cheap sleepers', and went to do a bit of shopping for meals etc. The main event though was the next morning. At 7.30 we were picked up from the hostel and taken to the starting point of the EXTREMO CANOPY TOUR!!! It was extreme. After getting kitted out and having a refreshingly succinct health and safety briefing, we got going on the first wire. This was, as expected, a small one, just to get used to the wires I presume. And they quicky got bigger and bigger from there. The network of cables was spread across 2 sides of a big valley and so there were some uber long ones that went from one side to the other. They were extreme. In the middle there was a short rappel that took us down to the jungle floor and then shortly after we had the tarzan swing. One might say that it was... extreme. It wasn't actually as big as some of the tarzan swings you can do as a separate thing but it was still big. There was a small freefall drop at the beginning which produced some hilarious screams from all the tour-ees. Notably mine. Will has a video if you want to hear it. I tried to go for a wooo of excitement but the drop followed by the tug of the harness resulted in something quite different. After everyone had done the swing, we did the last few cables before the big finale: 1km of wire going right across the valley, but in the superman flying position. It was amaaaaazing (-ly extreme), the speed you built up was epic and you only actually realise how fast you are going when you start re entering the forest on the other side, at which point you wonder whether there's actually any kind of braking system that's going to stop you from impaling yourself on a tree. There was thankfully, but i impaled myself on the tree anyway just for fun. I jest. That did not happen. And then that was it, the end of the tour. If I had to sum it up in one word I would probably say it was .... umm... extreme? Yes, that's a good word.

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