Day Twelve – Canopy, Zipline, and Rapids (oh my!)

Yesterday (Saturday) was a day for high adventure! Our first activity of the day was “canopy”. Canopy entails using ropes and cables to navigate among the tree tops, and ends in two zip lines over a river. Although our guides Ivan and Marcos and our equipment all seemed very trustworthy, I still couldn’t help being a bit nervous. It was really hard to keep your balance walking on the wires and wooden steps between trees. Thomas, of course, was grinning from ear to ear. When it came time to step off the platform to do the first zip line, I was downright scared. With lots of encouragement from Thomas, I did it, and it was fantastic. So FUN! He loved it too, and instead of zipping across the river in the fetal position like me, he did it upside down- like a big monkey.

Our next activity after lunch was supposed to be river rafting, but there weren’t enough people to make a group. Darn, I thought, now I will have to be safe and dry and take a nap! My nap plans were thwarted, though, when we stopped by another outfitter and learned that the last trip of the day was just about leave. We had a guy from Bosnia in our raft, as well as a family from Santiago, Chile, and our able guide Max. Since the youngest member of the family was probably around 9, I felt comforted.

My comfort level went back down at all the talk of what to do if you fall in the water during Max’s safety lecture. About 5 minutes into the ride we hit our first rapid, only a Class II, but a doozey. A wall of ice cold water came gushing over the top of the raft. Thomas got knocked back into me, and we both ended up on the floor of the raft. I let go of the top of my oar for a moment (a big no-no) and I’m still not sure if I accidentally whacked the girl behind me. I could tell Thomas was taken aback by how powerful the rapids were--his previous experience with rafting was relatively calm, and he wasn’t expecting to get knocked around.

After falling into the raft I was bound and determined not to fall OUT of the raft on the next rapids, which were II to III ½ (VI is the worst- I can’t imagine!). When we hit the next ones, everyone else was pretty much screaming with delight and fear and gave up on trying to row, but I thought if we all paddled hard enough we’d get through okay. So I turned into the Monica Seles of rafting. When Max yelled “adelante” or “atras” I paddled my little heart out, and was grunting like you wouldn’t believe! When the rapids stopped Thomas and I were laughing so hard, we couldn’t believe the sounds that had come out of my mouth in the throes of paddling! I tried to calm down a bit and enjoy the remaining rapids. I’m really glad I went, and Thomas LOVED it. In fact, he went back today to do the Class IV run. I finally got my nap.

-Elva