Getting a breath of fresh air

After a long week of class last week, we headed for the hills. Getting out of the city limits of San Jose, you realize what an amazing country Costa Rica is.

We were blessed with beautiful weather for our trip.
We packed so much in, I will have to put the events up in stages. The most memoriable by far was the zip line adventure. So we will start there. We went to Monteverde which is about 4 or 4 1/2 hours from our apartment. It is another one of the beautiful rain forests here in Costa Rica. But in this one you are not in the tropics, but in the cool gray misty cloud forest. One way to tour the cloud forest is what is called a canopy tour. There are 2 different kinds of tours, one gives you a chance to see animals from bridges and platforms, and the other lets you swing through the trees on "zip lines." It is a once in a lifetime experience. You are attached to a zip line (a cable from one tree to another) with a safety harness, and then you "fly" at about 30 miles per hour from one tree platform to the next. You may be anywhere from 60-300 feet above the forest floor.

You need a heafty dose of courage to take the first step off the first platform. After we got our safety harness on, they give you a brief, and I do mean brief, safety demonstration, and then you start.



Emma lead the way for our family. For months she has been talking about how she did NOT want to zip line. Infact, she was going to cancel her trip because she didn't want to zip. Not on Saturday. She stepped right up, hooked on, and went zipping through the forest. Dave and I were standing there watching her disappear in the jungle.



Maggi followed soon after. Showing little fear, she quickly followed her sister. Then Dave and I hooked on and went after them. Judy showed no fear either.



We came to a part of the tour, called the tarzan swing. This is where you climb up about 40 feet to a platform. They attach two ropes to you, and tell you to walk off the ledge. You then have a free fall of about 30 feet,and then it swings you in the jungle. It is CRAZY.


The last part of the adventure is called the "superman". This is about 3700 feet long and almost 400 feet off the ground. You have the option on the this one to be strapped in and zip hands free, face down, arms out flyng like superman. I personally chose to do the normal zip, Dave and Judy did the superman. Dave held the camera on video mode during his flight so you can see how fast they were going, and what it looked like. Well, one day you can, I tried for 2 hours last night to get the video to post, but no luck. I will keep trying.

So proud of the family for being courageous and brave!
What a wonderful family memory.