Costa Rica 2016: Day 3 - Zip Lining and Waterfall Hike

I'm blogging from the hot spring tonight (at least starting here).

I have been awake since 3am because my body just can't seem to get used to the time zone difference. So I went out and lounged in the hammock. It was very peaceful. I was up again at 5 and went out. It was raining and so relaxing to lounge listening to the rainfall.

Oddly enough Lisa was put in her hammock too but, because it was so peaceful and quiet, neither of us were making any noise so we didn't know the other was there.

I was praying the rain would stop as Lisa and I were going zip lining😬

Thankfully it passed by and Lisa and I were picked up at 8:15 for our adventure.

Paulo picked us up on the bus. Along the way we passed an accident where a woman's car was off the road and in the ravine. She was ok though so we moved along. It was about a 15 minute ride down a dirt road to get to, what I'm calling, base camp. This is where we watched a presentation about position, braking and safety as we stood in line to sign our lives away. Once signed we were fitted with our gear.

And waited in line to head up on the tram. While waiting we got a demo on how to sit, how to break and how to do the hand-over-hand should we stop mid run / before getting to a lower platform.

The tram ride up was beautiful.

Once at the top there was a few minutes for photos.

This is also where Lisa and I were told by Pepe and Diego that they are officially our Costa Rican boyfriends. We are still unsure what this entails but went along as we are certain this meant they would help get us down to the bottom safely.

The first of the 7 runs is the practice run and only about 100 feet long. This is where they make sure you can get in the 'cannonball' position, break and spread your legs open when they shake the rope. Lisa asked if, as she was coming in, I could spread my arms open to remind her. Turns out this was not necessary as they actually give you the international sign for this.

I was able to put the GoPro on so videos to come later (so you'll be able to hear my s teams as I am in sideways; but Lisa and I switched helmets at the 4th run so you won't be able to see when I turned backwards mid run) but I had my phone so here of some pics I was able to get in between the runs. (Oh, and we did find out run 4 is called speedy Gonzalez, run five is big Muma and run six is big daddy.).

The second run(the first long run). I swear I screamed going out of this but Lisa said I didn't make a sound....there's something wrong with me!

Don't ask...there was a 'rest stop' at the end of run 4 and we were the only two dumb asses taking pictures with this.

Lisa coming in on speedy Gonzalez.

Once you're done with big daddy you have climb the spiral staircase down this tower to get to run 7(which was totally anticlimactic as run 6 is over 1/2 mile Lon and the one you go the fastest on (we couldn't see the landing platform from the start and you go through trees to get there). Run 7 (aka the lame run) was probably less than 100 feet.

Once we were done, Pepe, Diego and all the other guys took back our equipment. Probably should have mentioned the guides actually take you all the way through (once the finish a level the zip line down to get through the next levels). We caught an earlier bus back and headed back to the hotel to meet up with Jen and Muma.

They had stayed back at the hotel for massages and peticures. They spent some time at the pool where Muma thought Jen said the guy she was talking to was Indian and Muma was so confused. Turns out Jen said from Indiana.

So we all packed our stuff up and started making our way to the waterfall. We planned to have lunch along the way. The directions we got from the hotel was to drive down about 10 minutes and take a right at the supermarket then take another right and drive over a short bridge then drive another 10 minutes. Sounds so simple. First, I blew past the supermarket because it's only like 3 minutes down the road. Then we were driving into town and I went the wrong way on a one way street. Oops. We found parking and walked down a couple of blocks to Nanku for lunch. We had lunch and then Jen went to the ATM. I offered to walk with her but she said it was just next door. She was gone for a while and we finally headed out to find her when she came back. Apparently there's a long line at the ATM and people were taking forever when they got up to it.

Now we headed back to Juan Paco and headed the La Fortuna waterfall.

We took some photos at the top

To get to it you have to walk down 500 steps. It's quite dizzying but so worth it! Once down there we put on our water shoes and headed in. It felt purifying in some way. There's a lot of energy in the waterfall it was incredible to be so close to it.

Grover had come along and got his photo op in

Jen's down there:

I tried putting my phone in a plastic Baggie and stood in the water to take pics of the walls but, sadly, this did not work out so well. Hopefully Lisa's pics will be better.

Once we were done swimming it was time to walk back up the 500 steps. I started playing the rocky theme song and Lisa started running up a bit. Here's some of the steps we walked up

We found a fantastic tree we could stand in.

And there were some cool rest stops along the way.

Once we got to the top we found Muma at the bar (she waited there for us) and headed to the super market. Lisa bought herself a 40 of Imperial (along with us all getting water and snacks).

Once we got back to the hotel, the hot spring jacuzzi was filled. Lisa enjoyed her 40 in the there.

We decided to go to Benedictos organic steakhouse for dinner. Jen read the Yelp reviews and this one said it was .9 miles away and up a 'slight' hill. I decided I'd drive us there (my first time night driving in Costa Rica - where they apparently don't believe in side walks or street lamps!).

It was most likely .9 miles from our hotel to their front gate (our hotel drive is about that long and this was practically across the street). After you passed the gate it was over 800 meters we know because we drove for a few minutes before we saw a sign saying we had that far to go. Anyways the 'slight hill' turned out to be, as Muma called it, Kilkmanjaro! And It was only one lane wide too so I have no idea how they expect people to pass each other. It was crazy steep hills. Once we got to the restaurant we were seated outside and the waiter actually asked who was driving because he had watched us drive up. I'd like to think it was my fantastically awesome driving skills that caught his eye but I sense it was the speed at which I drove or, because it was so quiet there, they heard us screaming laughing the whole way)!

While there they put out wood handled utensils. Lisa won't touch anything wood so she had to wrap napkins around her silverware to use it.