Zip Lining

The cold rush of cutting through the mist, feeling weightless as you fly hundreds of feet over the tree canopy below. Ok, so I’m being way more dramatic and descriptive than is necessary, but that’s kind of the point right? Writing down all my happenings in a blog so that you, the reader, can grasp the full experience, feeling as if you were here? That’s my aim, so bear with me in the mean time.

 

On my list of “things to do in Panama,” zip lining was at the top (on the non-theocratic part of the list, that is.) So you can imagine how excited I was to hear that Josh Glenn was organizing a group to go this past week in Boquete.  Josh’s family has been visiting these past couple weeks, so it was his turn to play tour guide and arrange fun experiences; including zip lining. We all agreed to meet at Coke a Cola, a local restaurant known for eggs as cheap as 35 cents each (provided they have eggs left) so that we could all ride over in Josh’s truck. The group was comprised of: Josh and his family, including his parents and younger sister, myself, and Malachi, Doug, and Jarvis, simply known as “the boys.” The boys were kind enough to volunteer sitting in the bed of the pickup, letting the rest of us ride in the cab sheltered from the sun and wind. The drive over was beautiful, in part, because we took the cutoff road leading from Volcan and the scenery along the way included  lush valleys, green fields of cows, and groves of oranges.  We had planned on going over early so as to explore Boquete a little since the boys had never been and were leaving within a few days back to the States.

Ahh, Boquete. It’s really a love…well, love relationship. To visit, that is. Not to live.  It was drizzling off and on a little when we arrived, but that didn’t stop us from checking out a few of the souvenir shops; Malachi was in search of engraved dominos. Unfortunately his desire was not met, but instead we snapped a few pictures and I introduced the group to The Fish House and their delicious menu (with more than just fish, in case you were wondering.) Then, dramatic intro, we made our way to the Zip lining office to pay and be bused up to the actual zip lining site. The ride up was a little rough, but it added to the whole experience and we weren’t too banged up after it was all said and done. Our means of transportation was this enclosed truck-looking-thing (nice description, huh?) with cushioned bench seats that held our group and a few extras that we picked up along the way. We climbed up into the mountains with trees and mist enclosing the vehicle until we emerged at a well maintained lodge where we unloaded to await our instructions. To start with, we were all taken into a small outside building where five or six guys were waiting to get us set up with the proper gear…and yes, that meant that they literally “strapped us in” with harnesses; a bit awkward, I must admit. But once we had gotten that part over with, we were all set to receive our debriefing and once again climb into the truck and head to our first line.

I have to be honest…at this point my stomach started to do flip-flops at the thought of dangling 500 ft. off the ground on a thin cable and as we neared the first precipice, this feeling only increased. Then, ironically enough, I was also the last one to go, so by the time my “descent” came I was kind of psyching myself out.  I approached the edge, the guide hooked up the proper harnesses and straps, I positioned my hands and feet in the suggested manner, the guide asked if I was ready and…whoosh! I was off! From that moment on, I was no longer scared. The next 11 lines were amazing and with each one, my excitement and enjoyment increased. On certain lines the whole group waited for each member, so each time I came in, everyone was there to see my reaction and take pics (Malachi had brought his camera to document the whole experience.) But other times it was only the guide that greeted me by asking how I was doing and making sure that everything was going smoothly. The guides were pretty on top of it, even remembering all of us by name. As you can imagine, the experience was over all too quickly and pretty soon I was on the last zip line that ended directly in front of the lodge.

After we had gotten all of our gear dismantled (more awkwardness, especially when the guides were teasing each other in Spanish where the only word I recognized was muchacha…)a few of us explored the surrounding grounds of the lodge while waiting for our ride back into town. As we road back part of me was sad; sad to be done with such a thrilling experience and ready to jump right back into it. But of course, this doesn’t have to be my only zip line experience… who knows when the opportunity might come up again.