Equipo Williams

A couple days ago we went zip lining. We were in Monteverde, Costa Rica, and had seen so many signs about canopy tours and zip lining, that we knew we had to try it. We picked the Original Canopy Tour, the one that started the high flying craze. It included a Tarzan Swing, a Rappel, a Tree Climb, and of course, Zip Lines.

We got to the canopy area, suited up, and walked in our group over to the Tarzan swing. It was basically an enormous swing that you got clipped into. It also started on a platform 40 feet off the ground. There was one guy and then Syd. Syd didn’t even scream, he just dropped off the platform and swung really high up. I was quite scared at this point because for some reason the fact that Syd didn’t scream scared me even more. Then Baba went and he screamed a bit, so I felt a lot safer about my chances of surviving it. Mama nad I went up onto the platform and the tour guide started clipping my harness onto the long rope that made the swing. It pulled me up against the fence but the guy held me until it was my time to go. He went 3, 2, and dropped me. It was very scary because I basically fell that entire 40 feet and then the swing pulled me back up to tree level. I screamed a bit, but was much too stunned by the scenario to be totally terrified. After that Mama went and I was a little scared for her, but she seemed perfectly fine with it. After everyone had gone we moved on to the next thing, zip lines.

We waited for the tour guides to get onto the lines while we learned how to do it. Basically you cross your legs, lean back, and use your specially lined gloves to pull down slightly on the rope and brake. We then went up to the platform and went on the zip line. The first three or four were fairly short and slow, so you could get used to the “steering” methods. I’ll come back to zip lines, because we did more, but the things we did next was the rappel.

At the rappel, I was the last person to go, so I got to watch everyone else do it. Syd was actually so light that the rope could hold him up, so he had to manually pull the rope up. I got hooked up to the rappel and the guy let me go. After a few quick pictures, the guide at the bottom let me down at a fast, but not scarily fast pace. It was really scary because the rappel went from very high up at the top of the jungle, to the ground pretty quickly. After the rappel, we got to climb up the hollow tree.

We basically got to climb up a bunch of smaller tree trunks that made up a ring that we could climb up. It wasn’t that hard, but at the top there was a big step that was hard for shorter and smaller people like me and Syd. We had little contraptions on our harnesses that made it so we could go up, but if we fell down, it would catch and hold us in the air. We also had to climb up a narrow and shaky rope ladder that was also wet and slippery, so even though we couldn’t fall, it still felt like we could and was super scary. 

After the tree climb we did a bunch more zip lines, then got to the main attraction. This was a super long zip line. 0.8 kilometers and over a big valley, this zip line was going to be awesome. I had adult equipment and was zip lining like an adult (Syd didn’t have to break, the guides would just catch him), but on this long one, I had to go clipped to a guide. This was just so that we were heavy enough and gained enough speed to get almost to the end. The line was designed so that even without breaking, no one made it to the end, and the guides would bring you up to the platform, just so that no one came whipping in and hurting themselves. After that we had to get back across the valley and down to ground level, which was partially achieved by a very, very steep zip line on which you had to break the entire way so as not to crash into the platform. After that we took 2 more zip lines to get to the ground, then went back to the canopy area. 

We de-suited, paid, and left with one of the most adrenaline activating and fun experiences we’ve ever had. We are going to try to go again in a couple of days to a different zip lining place, because we loved it so much. If you have a sense of adventure and love to be challenged, you will find zip lining very fun. I would definitely plan an entire vacation back to Costa Rica to go zip lining here and I hope that someday I will get to come back.