No one – including me – can quite believe that I went zip-lining in Panama. For the uninitiated, zip-lining is an adventure sport that involves coasting along a cable strung between two high tree tops. You’re attached by a harness and a metal pulley – and you’re way up high, often soaring above a roaring river. I’m not afraid of heights – so that wasn’t a problem. But I do question my technical skill in these kind of things – will I be able to follow directions properly so I don’t end up at a standstill mid-cable dangling over the roaring river? Will I remember when and how to brake. (It involves simply squeezing your hand that the cable is running through – but it’s hard sometimes to figure out just when to start squeezing and how hard.) I didn’t screw up too badly.
I wish I could say it was fun – but I was too nervous to really enjoy it the way the others in our group (five young kids in their early 20s, four German, one Chilean) were. I did try to enjoy the sensation of flying across the tree tops way high on a mountain and occasionally succeeded. It did help that there were six very good-humored, safety-conscious young guys from Boquete Tree Trek as our guides. The first three zips were easier than the final nine because with the last ones, there was more standing and waiting which meant more thinking about the nutty thing we were doing. It kind of reminded me of our trip to Morocco in 1989 – made for interesting story-telling but once is probably enough.
TakeBetsywithyou 