Canopy Extremo!

18.10.2014

So I completely passed out waiting for the bus to leave the terminal. The warm sun coaxed my eyelids shut and I dozed while buskers, hustlers and beggars hopped on and off the bus hoping for a handout. When I woke up there was a soldier guarding me with a machine gun. I turned around and saw three Americans behind me and asked them if they knew about the soldiers. They also had no idea about them. Ohhhkayyyy, moving on then! I asked if they were going to the zip line in La Campa and they said yes so I asked if I could tag along. They agreed and that settled it, I guess I was going to go zip lining today. My guidebook is way too old and I had only heard about this zip line because one if my students mentioned it. I thought I would spend the weekend lounging around browsing pottery studios and sipping cold beer with tacos. Everything changed when I realized this zipline was kind of a big deal. I was only wearing sandals so I wasn't sure if I could even do it, but it turned out not to be an issue at all. There was a big group coming down the mountain so we had to wait for them to finish zipping before we could go up. I was famished. I bought a good tipica plate with some greasy chicken and fed the leftovers to the two skinny dogs staring at me while I ate. We went up the mountain in the back of a rickety black pickup truck and at the top, we suited up and signed a waiver. I was quite taken aback when my new american friends blatantly refused to be my witness for the form! One of them point-blank said "no" and literally turned his back on me when I mentioned it. You had to sign the standard "I take all responsibility for dying on this tightrope in a developing country" thing but you also needed a witness, so.... oh well... I guess???? And I handed it back meekly to the zip line guide. Luckily the witness thing also wasn't an issue, but I thought that was so cold of my new friends, especially when later, they asked if I could do them a favour and send them my videos! OK no problem American friends! Here's my blog address where you can see my videos PLUS you can also read about what I think of you and your uptight jerk faces! Anyway, the zipline was really good. It was quite similar to all the ones I've been to in Quebec, crisscrossing over a valley, but this one was completely over the top! So high and scary! I dont think Lafleche or Chutes Coulonge can compare at all. Maybe I'm remembering the ziplines in the past differently, but I was wayyyyy more frightened doing this one. It could have just been my distrust of the CHILDREN hooking up my harness each time. I dunno about you, but that MAY have contributed to the adrenaline and fear pounding through my veins the entire time. After six heart pounding zips, I was back on the ground, exhilarated and happy I changed my mind about the zipline. If you're interested, for foreigners its $25USD to do, comparable to Canada, so not a bad price I guess. There's only a few buses back to Gracias per day and they leave in the morning. I decided not to hitchhike back with the Americans. Instead, I rented a really nice room at Hostal JB just around the corner. I wasn't hungry for dinner at all after that but, I thought a nice cerveza was in order. After visiting two pulperias, the third lady laughed and told me LA CAMPA Y SECA! NO CERVEZA! (La Campa is dry! No beer!) Are you kidding me? This weekend just got a lot more lame... Instead, I bought a coconut water to rehydrate and I enjoyed the evening in the relative quiet of the hotel porch wrapped in a blanket in the shadow of a slice of sheer rockface, listening to the brook babble past and watching the lightning bugs dance, while the neighbours slaughtered a pig and someone fired a gun in the distance. Really. What is my life?

The mountain