Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Canopy Tour and More

When I visited Jamaica a couple of years ago, one of my most favorite activities was the canopy tour. When I heard that Costa Rica's Canopy Tours are really good, I put it on my "someday" list. And today was became that "someday." Briefly canopy tours allow a treetop level view of the forest by riding ziplines from about a dozen different staging areas. At times one can go as fast as 65 mph, with the wind blowing into one's face and the green wet jungle below, it's absolutely spectacular.

Dennis took to it immediately--we would take turn videotaping each other and Linda. Linda found a way to conquer her fears by riding in tandem with one of our Costa Rican guides. The guides became her surrogates!

After riding some ziplines that spanned several thousand feet...and ultimately surviving it all, we were taken to a sample Meloka village. The village featured wooden structures topped with banana leaves and the "inhabitants" explained that they only wear their "native" dress for tourists. After a bit of Meloka woo woo, we were invited to look over the many crafts that present day Melokans make for visitors like us. Considering that there might be a small space on my international mask wall for a Meloka mask, I selected a nicely painted one featuring bright blue butterflies which symbolize love, peace and liberty.

Then it began to rain. Not a light sprinkle, but rather a cold incessant rain. Just because it was raining hard there was no way our tour would quickly end and we'd be handed mugs of hot chocolate and sit around a fire. Rather, we forged ahead. Next we were placed on top of horses whose saddles were sopping wet. And then we simply became drenched through and through. The horses trudged through lots of mud...and eventually we arrived at the staging area. Soon enough we were returned to our hotel, hot showers and dry clothes.

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