Costa Rica II
piecemeal progression
as i get the time and have the inclination
speaking of which:
Canyoneering in Costa Rica
Canyoneering! A pretty damn mild term for “Ok its only 185 feet to the rocks you can see between your feet, through the dark, wet slats of the platform jutting out over the precipice, there among the swirling water in the midst of the narrow, dark, steep walled canyon covered in elephant ear plants, ferns, 100 foot trees and various vines, blotting out the sunlight and hiding legions of leaf-cutter ants who would gladly carry you off instead”. “You are now hooked up; you cant get hurt; place your weak hand on the rope here, take the rope by your hip in a steady strong grip, turn around lean back in a sitting position with nothing under you but empty space,and drop off the damn platform to your inevitable death or face the contempt of all the old women and young girls who are going to or have already done exactly that, except for the death part.” I think thats pretty much what I heard. it may not be exactly what they said but ….
Pictures of me doing that show “a very serious face”. I am so glad that abject terror shows as serious that I can’t begin to tell you. The crashing, roaring sound of falling water cascading off rocks all the way down added a certain piquancy to the proceedings too . And so resigning myself to my inevitable doom by falling (my number one most disliked method of dying , unless its drowning) I rappelled down the waterfalls, remembering to keep my knees together, kick back and drop rapidly in a manly way down the “new ropes which are a little slicker than old ones and applying pressure may not stop you as quickly as old ones would. Oh, and aim for the center of the whirlpool there about halfway down.”
I was surprised to find that it wasn’t really a whirlpool, but rather just a place where the river was splashing off jutting rocks, and that while you could drop about thirty feet straight down, that the five foot wide basalt chute we were plummeting through , took about a ten foot right turn, letting you drop straight into a couple of very hard impervious pointy but big rocks that must have been accumulating skin all day. I happened to see it coming and kicked out and over and just hit the rocks on the other side. A fortuitous thing. By then a little blood just seemed manly. I was getting into the spirit of the thing! The spirit of the thing was something like “Oh the hell with it. Lets do it. it’ll be a good story if we live.” That is the tag on every one of Steves adventures. This was just another one.
so platform after platform, “hold here, turn backward to the chasm, sit back, go!” I’m proud to say it never lost its terror but that we all did it, young and old, male and female. Clever that. There was by the way just something awe inspiring in looking down between your feet to rock and water 100 plus feet away. I seriously think my fear of heights added a little sauce to the proceedings, for me, if for no one else.
I finally just let it go and slid so fast and so far i got a round of applause.
And by the time we had made the last rappel, After an hour or so of one rappel after another I’m proud to say, I have to tell you… it still scared the hell out of me.