Day 4: Zip Lines

What a day. I woke up apprehensive about the zip-lines. Well, apprehensive is an understatement. I was anxious and a little bit scared, but I knew it would only get worse when we got there. We packed out lunches after breakfast in the morning. I made two sandwiches. Each had mustard, two slices of fresh cheese, two slices of tomato and lettuce. I didn’t feel like eating the cold cuts that were provided. I also packed some cookies and two orange juice boxes. To tell you the truth, I was kind of excited about that lunch. Our taxis arrived while we were packing lunches and we all hurriedly finished and ran to the taxis. Doug, James, Henry, Chris and I were all in the same taxi on the trip up the mountain. We talked about various things but Chris was really the only person I talked to because he was sitting right next to me. I was a little concerned through the trip because my seat was loose and I was bouncing around a lot, but I seemed to manage.

The trip up was pretty uneventful, although there were once again some incredible views. The taxi driver got really close to the edge of the road a lot of times, I could have reached out of my window and touched the wall of the cliff. After a while to Chris’s and my surprise, we hit paved road. It was such a weird sensation and both Chris and I exclaimed “WHAT! It’s paved!” It turns out that the community got together and paved that portion of the road by hand so that it would not wash out during the rainy season. If it washed out, the people would be stranded up on the mountain and not even the kids would be able to get to school.

The town of Santa Elena was pretty touristy. There were a lot of nice looking hotels and restaurants, as well as a lot of tourists wandering around. Eventually we got to Sky Trek, the place where the zip-lines were. It was a pretty nice, very professional looking place. We walked in and that is when the nerves really hit me. If I was going to chicken out, this would be my chance. Long story short, I didn’t chicken out. There was a tough mental battle but I decided that this would probably be my only chance to do the zip-lines. So I might as well.

We were all huddled into a room where we were told that we could put some of our stuff in lockers. I chose to put my backpack and 70-200mm lens in the locker to drop a little weight. I stuffed the key into my wallet and then put my wallet in my camera bag where I wouldn’t lose it. We then all got fitted into our gear, which consisted of very elaborate harnesses, helmets, and gloves. The whole group looked pretty official.

Our guide for the trip was named Donald, and he spoke English, which was pretty cool. He was a really nice guy and I could tell that he would take care of us. We all loaded up into vans and went to the sky lift thing. Apparently, you used to have to hike a long way up the mountain to get to the first zip line. I guess we got lucky because the sky lift went into service a few days before we got there and we didn’t have to walk at all.

My nerves really started to get to me as we went up in the lift. I was able, however, to snap a few pictures. Here is one of the first views I saw.

I also took a picture of Noreen, Kaitlin and Heather. Caitlin was sitting beside me, so she wasn’t in the picture.

The rest of the guys in the lift ahead of us decided to turn around and I took that opportunity to take a picture of them. Apparently Chris was being lazy and didn’t want to stand up.

Here is the 2nd view I got.

We eventually got up to the top and I cleverly figured out how to strap my camera bag to my belt so it wouldn’t bounce around or be in any danger of falling. Donald asked me if I wanted to take pictures, I acquiesced nervously because I didn't like the idea of standing at the top of the tower. Donald clipped my carabiner to the railing and I proceeded to take pictures. Chris was the first person up and I snapped a couple shots of him gliding off to the next tower.

I then turned around and realized what a gorgeous view there was. If you look closely at the picture you can see the Pacific Ocean off in the distance.

The next person I got a good picture of was Jason. He was all relaxed and laid back as usual. I wish I could have been like that.

It finally came to be my turn to go down the zip-line. I was really nervous, but after seeing everyone else do it I had calmed down a little. Donald strapped me in and made sure my camera was secure. Then we heard “Alpha Alpha”, Donald gave e a push and away I went. What an experience. It definitely wasn’t nearly as scary as I thought it was. I was going really fast too. The only part where it made me a little nervous was when the wind blew me sideways and I had to grind the handle on the cable the opposite direction to straighten myself out. It was an incredible experience and I had 10 more lines to go.

I had a pretty good landing at the next platform. The way the stopped you was pretty cool and a lot more simple than I had imagined. They had a big thick rope tied to the cable and when you came sliding in they held the rope and it slowed you down.
The next zip line I opted to go first so that I could get pictures of everyone coming in. That was how comfortable I was with it. After the first time I realized that it wasn’t scary at all and started having a blast. Anyway, I went first on the next one and a few more zip lines after that. I got some pretty cool shots. I would love to put them all up but there are quite a few.
Here is one of Caitlin coming in, she had to go tandem with one of the guides because she is so small. She would have gotten stuck by herself I guess.

On this next one Chris didn’t make it far enough and had to turn around and pull him self to the end. It was kind of funny and I got a picture of it.

Heather seemed to be having a lot of fun and I got a decent panning shot of her coming in. I think it shows her movement pretty well.

One of the times I went first Chris and Hudson came after me, but then a different group of people ended up coming down. I guess since they were a smaller group the put them ahead so that we wouldn’t hold them up. Anyway, one of the people in the group was an old lady and she made the most hilarious face when she came in on the zip line. Here is Chris’s impression. I don’t even know how Chris made this face; to me it is pretty much once in a lifetime.

We did several more zip lines and after I felt like I got enough pictures I put my camera away. On the last couple of zip lines I had to go tandem with Donald because the lines were super long and everyone had to go tandem. I taught Donald a Japanese phrase. いくぜ or ikuze. It means, “let’s go!” I got him to shout it with me as we went down, it was kind of fun.
After we finished all of the zip lines Doug met back up with us and we went to the hummingbird garden to eat our lunches. I had been pretty excited about this all day because I discovered that I love taking pictures of hummingbirds. We all sat down to eat lunch and I got to eat my lettuce, tomato and cheese sandwiches. They were wonderful. Then I busted out my camera and zoom lens. Much to my surprise, the first animal we saw was another Coati! This time I got some pretty cool pictures of it.

After that I focused on the hummingbirds. I took about 50-60 pictures and this one was by far my favorite. It is so awesome.

Next on the agenda was the canopy walk on suspension bridges. I didn’t like this idea because I don’t like to be on unsteady surfaces suspended a few hundred feet off of the jungle floor. The experience ended up being pretty cool. The forest we were in was a primary forest, so basically it had not been destroyed and re-grown, and this was all original growth. It was totally different from what we had seen before and the vegetation was really thick.

We kept walking through and Hunter found this really cool tree with vines hanging off of it, which he was inclined to play with.


I took a picture of this really huge fern. It was gigantic, larger than a car even.

James on one of the suspension bridges.

This was the longest bridge we crossed; it was divided into two huge sections.

An hour or so later we finally made it through all 10 suspension bridges and I got to take a picture of this orchid. It was really pretty. Notice the leaves, I thought they were really cool.

After our sky trek adventure we went to the creamery for some home made ice cream. I opted for an orange pineapple milkshake. It wasn’t as good as I expected but it was still good. There were pieces of fruit in it, which were yummy. The whole thing tasted very creamy and thick, but wasn’t as sweet or fruity as I had wanted. Chris got some sour sop sherbet that he let me try. It was amazing; I wish I had gotten some of that.

We finished at the creamery and went to the women’s cooperative to buy stuff. Doug said we had an hour and he took a taxi back to the eco lodge. Our taxis were to come pick us up later. I shopped and eventually found a hammock, a Imperial t-shirt, and a really cool hand-made bottle thing for my brother Matt. James bought some fruit that was really weird. It looked like it had an egg sack inside it but it was actually very juicy and tasty.

The taxi ride back was pretty nice. Our driver stopped at a look out and I got to take some pictures of the incredible view.

And look Mom and Dad; I let someone else take a picture of me. Gasp!

I then proceeded to take a picture of Chris trying to look like a model. I think it turned out pretty well.

I took one final picture of the scenery and then we had to leave. That view was amazing.

Dinner was pretty uneventful and we didn't have any activities after dinner. I just relaxed, worked on pictures and this journal. Now I am going to go to bed. Good night!