Day 6-7: Monteverde
24-Nov-06
Oh, my god. So much pain. Yesterday we swung from tree to tree on ziplines (cables strung between trees, on which you zip along using a pully and, well, gravity). It was, frankly, exhilerating, but EXHAUSTING!
We zipped on I think 7 cables. Often we´d be let go on one end, and be unable to see the other side for all the mist and fog! The only regret was not bringing our disposable camera with us– that was definitely the time to bring and use it, as my camera would have been destroyed, but a sturdy disposable would have served us well.
In the course of ziplining, you wear a harness (2 if you´re heavyset like me), and the zipline operators hook your harness to your pully, which they´ve attached to the cable. This means you get attached and detached at every cable. Which is humiliating if you´re short, because you have to jump up for them to unhook your harness. Which can be frightening when someone is coming in for a landing and you´re standing there on the platform. Especially if you´re also out of shape and sore from the previous 3 days of adventure and can´t jump very high. At one point, I jumped, slipped, and fell on my ass. I explained to the very apologetic operator that there was no harm, no foul– I had plenty of padding.
Also, when you´re on the cable, you use your hands to brake and keep yourself stable. One hand behind you for stability and to slow brake, and you add the other hand and press down if you need to hard brake. Not surprisingly, I never got the hang of braking.
By the time we finished, my right arm was trembling (temblorosa).
After, we had lunch at the “captive audience” restaurant in the park. I think I had rice and chicken– my stomach was giving me the Latin America/travelling blues yesterday, and I wanted to take it easy. The food her in CR hasn´t been spicy or anything, and the tap water is thoroughly drinkable. However, any travel eventually gives me a bit of a turn, which usually ends after a day or so, and yesterday was the day.
And you´re wondering now why I shared this bit of TMI with you, I´m sure. Well, after lunch we went on the sky bridge tour, which is a self-guided nature walk over suspended bridges in the canopy. Lots of opportunities for bird-watching, if you know how to look and know what you´re looking at, and if the birds aren´t all huddled away because of the damp. We saw 2 or 3 species of birds (in an area where it´s not unheard of to see 50 or 60 in a day).
At 4:30, the last bus out of the park was leaving, but I started having more tummy trouble long before that, and getting to the exit began to be a chore. My airways gave me hell, my legs and knees gave me hell, and of course my arms were still shaking from the earlier exertion. I was, needless to say, cranky as hell by the time we got back and returned to the hotel (after 30 minutes on unpaved rocky mountain roads).
Back at the hotel, John went downstairs to do something on the computer (find out from our bank why the ATM card doesn´t work– still no answer on that score), while I spent about a half hour taking a shower and returning to some semblance of human. We went to dinner at the hotel restaurant– chicken a l’orange with mashed potatoes and veggies, in honor of Thanksgiving (hey, it was poultry with gravy and mashed potatoes). Unfortunately, I could only finish about half of my dinner, and then we headed out for a short walk around the block (after I ran upstairs and put on my knee brace) before retiring for the night. I think John went out again after I tucked in to sleep, but I honestly don´t remember.
When I woke up this morning, I could barely move my right arm. Thank goodness I brought a small jar of Tiger Balm with us– I´ve used that thing four times so far, two of them this morning!
Breakfast was cinnamon bread, coffee, and juice, and we´re now planning our day´s activities. It´s 9:30, which means catching the late tours or transportation for everything we might want to do. This is our last night in Monteverde. Tomorrow afternoon we move on to Alajuela.