Extreme Costa Rica, Spontaneous Mary and Bob

Day 5
It rained and poured all night long. The wind howled. It was as though waves of wind and rain were hitting the house. We awoke to more rain and wind. Our thoughts of going on a zip-line through the Cloud Forest diminished as the morning went on. We decided to settle in with our reading material; Bob reading The Zen and a Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and I'm enjoying several books on my Kindle.
Soon after, there was a knock at the door and Richard said it would be a good day to go rappelling down 4 waterfalls. This is advertised as Extreme Costa Rica in all the local brochures. We were skeptical because of the rain and wind and also because Bob had never rappelled before and I had not harnessed up to rappel in about 10 years. And it sounded dangerous. Two old geezers rappelling down one 20 ft. cascada, two 40 ft. cascadas and one 120 ft. waterfall! Yikes, what were we thinking?

But Richard assured us that it would be the highlight of our vacation and it would be terrific. Knowing we'd get soaking wet (little did we really know!) we put on light-weight clothes and headed off in Richard's vehicle over the worse roads yet; bouncing up and down the mountainside on slippery roads to a very remote place in the Cloud Forest. We paid our money, got our equipment on and checked, watched the owner's daughter do a demonstration of rappelling on a wooden ladder by a shed and we were off on our Extreme adventure. The trail to the first cascada was dangerous in itself; loose and slippery rocks, slimy moss and tree roots on a downhill trek. We slipped and slid while hanging on to the homemade rubber railing tied to the trees.

Suffice is to say that Eleanor Roosevelt said to do something every day that scares you. Her idea was to open yourself to possibilities of life. Which of course means to be afraid so that you can actually feel. Basically, the human spirit is alive due to unpredictability and fear. I'm not sure that she would have suggested rappelling down waterfalls in remote Costa Rica. But then, where is it written in the book of life that you shouldn't be taking a risk the first week of your four month journey and experience an adrenalin rush?  And so we did.

We felt like kids again. Even the fear factor of slippery rocks, dizzying heights (125 ft. free-fall off of a cable into the river was our totally vertical zip-line of the day!), that initial scare of leaning back at the top of a steep waterfall and trusting the rope and not knowing if  the guides' expertise with ropes and equipment was superior certainly did not deter us from our goal. Having rappelled before, I was very aware of safety and when I observed the owner/guide check and recheck our climbing equipment and the ropes, I knew we'd be okay in that department. However, our inexperience in such wet steep conditions with water pouring into our faces and gloves from strong waterfall surges did make for a good fear factor. I have to say that my rope-climbimg friends Kim and Dave would have been very proud of us.

I'll let the photos and videos that one of the guides took tell the rest of the story. Since I downloaded them onto iPhoto from a CD, I'm not sure of the quality, but I think that you'll get some of the adrenal rush we were feeling.