Reecey had signed us up for an activities day that promised excitement and a few nervous moments. We were staying in La Fortuna, a small tourist town at the foot of the Arenal Volcano. "This side of the road is where the lava came to last time... this side was OK," our bus driver told us.
The volcano, while active, is not producing much lava at the moment, which must have caused Mr Lava Lava Man, a local Tico, some problems when Lonely Planet was reporting that he would guarantee anyone taking his tours would get to see lava.
One of Reecey's many charms is to sign up for things that would scare a monkey out of its tree. And so our day commenced with abseiling down from a wire bridge into a waterfall:
We then climbed down further into the canyon:
Reecey then stood in a puddle of chilly Costa Rican rainforest water:
The red-helmeted Ticos running the ropes had a cheeky sense of humour. Just when you thought you had everything under control in a graceful descent, they would yank a rope and the limbs of the yellow-helmeted tourist would flail like a puppeteer's doll.
Exhibit A:
The Costan Ricans have a saying - pura vida - the pure life - which they seem to use as a cross between "cheers" or "no worries" or "all the best". There were some young Americans in our group from New Jersey - with all the stereotyped macho characteristics that comes with that area. Our guides gave them some lessons in Costa Rican Spanish by teaching them to say puta vida - the whore life - much to our amusement.
Before lunch - because there is no way you would want to do this after lunch - we were clipped into a tarzan swing and launched into the rainforest. But this was no ordinary swing - as we found our when we were flung out through the trees and above the valley below. This is not just a picture of trees - I am on the end of a very long cable out there.
After lunch, we played on the ziplines, whizzing through the rainforest. This is Reecey travelling on the 150m line.
But the highlight of the day was the 750m "Superman" cable. This required (1) a pretty red safety suit; (2) a climb up a tower that was blood-pumping enough before launching yourself off the top; and (3) belief in superman.
This is my brave wife before it.
This is my Superwoman wife at the end:
This is our Israeli friend Dani getting strapped on to the cable - there is nothing over that edge - well not for a couple of hundred metres or so.
The supermanning itself requires very little skill, but Dani does a good job for the camera.
We had one final zipline back to the starting point, where Reecey and I had a race. All my training (beer-drinking) paid off with my superior hold over gravity and inertia winning the day.
To end the day, Reecey had booked in a dinner package at Baldi Hot Springs, a couple of kilometres from La Fortuna town. We figured the hot waters would cure any frayed nerves.
There were a couple of waterslides in the complex, which was decked out resort-style with swim-up bars.
Lulled by the warm water and promise of drinks at the bar, we slipped down the waterslides. However, what we couldn't see in the dark, was that these waterslides were very, very steep - and what we didn't know until approximately 20% of the way down the slide, was that this was going to be the scariest activity of the day - and the only real wipe out. Pura vida!
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