After ziplining and before lunch, we went to a school and planted some trees in the reserve. This is a Costa Rican avocado plant that Candice is positioning.
Someone - Luke? - took this photo of me. I think I am happy that my feet are now on the ground!
This somewhat scary creature was in the visitors center at the Santa Elena preserve.
Here we have a stick insect. It reminded me of when we had dozens of stick insect babies all over the curtains at Hessle Terrace; they had escaped from the cage of their parents!
View from the top of the trail; at one point you could see the Carribbean...
There was a tower you could climb; stairs and then a steep ladder to the very top, only two at a time. That's some of our group below.
Before I show you our ziplining adventure, I must explain my ziplining history. Once upon a time, in the middle of the desert on the road between LA and Vegas, there was a group of manmade lakes, a waterpark called Lake Dolores. We would often see commercials for this on TV and a group of friends and I visited on two different years.
You had to sign a form when you went in, some kind of death and dismemberment waiver. The water slides were hairy enough, but there was also a high trapeze over the water (which practically wrenched your arms out of their sockets once you did the big drop off the platform), and a ziplining attraction.
"On the "Zip–Cord" ride, riders hung from a hand–held device attached to a
guide wire for approximately 200 feet (61 m) at a 30–degree downward
angle. At the end of this wire the hand–grip would slam into a blocking
mechanism and come to a stop about 20 feet (6.1 m) above the water, with
the momentum thrusting the hanging rider 20 feet (6.1 m) forward into
the lagoon."
The "blocking mechanism" was actually a huge tire, and you certainly would NOT want to "slam into" it; the impact even with the empty zipline was severe! What you did, or what my friends did, over and over (they loved it!), was to drop into the water just before the end of the line.
What the above paragraph also didn't describe was that there were three ziplines. Two went very high above the solid ground (you launched off a a cliff) before they went over the water and the third hugged the ground more, in that it only went about ten feet off the ground. There also was a lower drop at the end into the water, 10 or 15 feet rather than 20. On my second visit, after much persuasion from my friends who loved the higher ziplines, I chose the lower one because it looked much less frightening not to be so high off the hard ground. (Remember, you were NOT strapped in; all that was keeping you from falling was the overhead grip of your two bare hands!)
No one had been using that lower line, and I mistakenly believed that this was because it was the "baby" one. Perhaps I should have remembered my geometry; the land-hugging line went at a much sharper, perhaps 45 degree, angle!
I stood at the top of the cliff, grabbed the zipline pulley doodah, looked down, and changed my mind. But as I tried to turn around to get off the pulley, the weight of it pulled me and I lost my footing; so here I was, zooming off without even a decent grip on the overhead bar!
I once tumbled down an embankment flipping over and over in my car; I once was in the passenger seat of a car which was hit head on by a double decker bus, but both those experiences were nothing compared with this! These few seconds were the most terrifying of my life! The angle was so sharp and I was going so fast that my feet were flying out in back of me; I was almost flying Superman style nearly parallel to the ground, but with no control!
I saw the tire looming and dropped down to the water; landed straight on my chest! I blacked out and a lifeguard had to rescue me - so embarrassing! - and I've been afraid of heights ever since.
Ziplining in Costa Rica sounded quite different and a good way for me to get over my fear of heights AND of zip lines. After all you would be strapped in; you would have instruction, you would have people at both ends... What could go wrong?
Here is our group before we took off:
I thought, before I got there, that I would be able to sit
back and use my mini video camera as I was slowly and steadily pulled through the trees; I did not realize that I would have
to control my way-too-fast movement and brake with my loosely-gloved hand! I also did not realize we
would be going quite so fast; suffice to say my fear of heights never got a look in, as I
never even once got a chance to look down! Or even around! I guess I would have been able to look around had I gone on the last really long segment over a valley, but I and about half the others bailed out at the two thirds point, after seven segments. (And a few of our group did so after the first two segments.)
Yes, it looks like I am having the time of my life here! This is because the cameraman had not let go of my zipline yet, at least in the first shot. The ones he took of me coming in to the platform he was on, just before this, tell a totally different story, but sorry, they are not for public consumption!
It actually wasn't that bad; almost fun at times, but I wish we had been given a chance to practice. Going so fast freaked me out and it was so hard for me to keep my hand from hitting the zipline, which made me career and spin back and forth wildly. I was also crap at braking. On two of the runs I was told - only afterward! - that I hadn't had to brake!
The worst thing for me was the speed; I kept having flashbacks to Lake Dolores and that big tire looming! And the adrenaline made my mouth so dry - we could not carry water nor was there any on the platforms, even at the end where one had a long uphill hike!
Here's Luke setting off, just before me:
Candice was much better at this!
And here she is setting off across the big valley:
Now that looks so much easier; no hands on the zip line!
But speaking of gloved hands, one of our people, Moe, lost her glove during one of the three final long segments, one during which you had to use your hand to brake! Thinking on her feet - even though they were dangling! - she simply switched hands, and luckily did not lose the other glove. Here she is in action - go Moe!!!
Will I try it again? The jury is out. But at least now I know what to expect!
We left La Fortuna and had a long scenic drive, circling the Arenal volcano and its lake, to Santa Elena, our home for the next two nights. Along the way we saw a sloth. Yes, he or she is that blob in the centre of the tree.
Stopped for coffee and cake at a place where the ground was littered with macadamia shells. I had a most delicious macadamia nut muffin as well as part of a cinnamon roll, the latter in memory of my father. The green specks atop these macadamia nut shells are bits of leaves carried by leafcutter ants.
The view from the cafe:
Another sloth!
We arrived at our Santa Elena lodgings at lunchtime, and had most of the afternoon free. Saw this sign on the way into town; never got a chance to see if it was true...
We headed toward the Ranario, the Frog Pond, but we did not go in because we were told the amphibians were all asleep! The place is open till 8:30 and it's best to go in the late afternoon or evening, so our timing was not right. So I just took some photos of Luke outside.
We heard some rustling in the bushes when we were passing someone's house, and it turned out to be a coatimundi, stealing a couple of bananas from a huge bunch the people had sitting next to their porch. These photos are by Luke; I couldn't get my camera out quickly enough. This is the most we saw of the thief's face...
Outside an ice cream shop (yes, macadamia nut ice cream!) we met Gigi's Costa Rican cousin. He was very friendly.
At 5:30 pm, we went on a night hike in the cloud forest. Most of my photos are just a psychedelic greenish blur, as we often could not use flash.
Luke's long lens worked better in the dark; the next three photos are his:
However, the leafcutter ants did not seem to mind a flashlight shone upon them. I should have taken a photo of the "Ant Crossing" sign next to the path.
A leaf with legs; yes, it is a bug!
No photos or videos of what were the two most exciting sightings for me; first, an olingo frolicking about at the top of a tree. You can see what I'm talking about here. And here's a photo of a baby olingo, just because you can probably never see enough photos of baby olingos.
Then, some long-nosed fruit bats drinking from a hummingbird feeder. They would not come if there was any light, but you could see their outline in half light; they hovered at the feeder almost like hummers do.
Here's a photo of what we saw:
(This is from http://www.mammalwatching.com/Neotropical/neotropiccostarica.html which has some really great photos and information on Costa Rican mammals. Interestingly enough, the guy who did that web site - full of great bat photos - failed to see an olingo, although he saw my other favorite, a kinkajou!)
