Day 7

Ziplining!

This was the day that Mrs. Langford had been counting down to and Mrs. Ogle had been dreading--Zipline day!!  Our driver picked us up and we drove for a little over an  hour to the Artola area.  Since we were at a lower elevation than in Arenal, the forest was different.  It was called a dry forest, because it does not receive as much rain as the higher altitude forests.  It had more deciduous trees than the rain forests, much more like the forests in Alabama.  

Once we arrived, we were quickly put into our harnesses and joined the group who was already waiting.  Somehow, it ended up that I (Mrs. Langford) had to go first!!  The guys who were running it would go ahead, usually upside down, which of course made me feel very safe.  Definitely a hard act to follow!!   We had 11 ziplines to 'zip'.  Some were shorter than others, and some were faster, depending on the angle of the lines.  The operaters had their own zipline humor.  Just before I went on my third zipline, the guy looked at my pulley and said, 'uh-oh, something's not right', then he gave the pulley a thump and said, 'I think its okay now!' (You THINK it's okay? ) Everybody's a comedian.  

Mrs. Ogle had been worried about this the whole trip, but somewhere in the middle she actually started to enjoy it.  At the end she was so glad she did it.  It's a rewarding and exhilarating  feeling to prove that you can do something that you did not think you could ever do, and for Mrs. Ogle that something was ziplining.  She'll probably be skydiving next!    

Mrs. Ogle after she finished the last zipline!

We saw a family of howler monkeys while we were ziplining! This was the closest we had seen them the whole trip!  A mother had a baby on her back while she jumped from limb to limb!  The male was making a lot of noise to scare away predators (which he assumed we were) from his family.  

Ziplining was an awesome experience!!

We did it! (and survived to tell about it!)