F’in Flying Fox……
Yes today I did what is known as a Canopy tour, because well you hang in and above the canopy. This Canopy tour was 15 flying foxes or ziplines spread through primary growth cloud forest. The forest is spectacular on the ground, shame I really didn’t want to look down too much on the flying foxes.
So the bus came and picked me up to visit Selvatura. One of the many canopy tours available to me. I chose this one because it didn’t claim to be the fastest or longest….. Plus it was one of the few actually in primary growth cloud forest, which technically is the whole idea even though you don’t see a lot.
Some guides kitted me up in jacket, harnesses, ropes, belts, carabiners, gardening gloves designed to be used as a brake and of course the pulley wheel for the cable. They assured me the cable was strong enough to hold my weight. Ok no problem what about the harness and other things… how strong are they.
Looking like a juicy orange
We had a safety talk and a prime position where you literally sit down let the harness take the weight, cross your legs and bend the knees and lift them up, put your brake hand as far back as possible and make an O with your hand around the cable and you are ready to go. The first few cables were scary enough for me…. They literally went bang bang bang, not time to get your breath back or think about the next one, once you got to the end they hooked you up to another zip line and off you go.
Then came some long buggers over 200m long and one over 300m long. I could hardly see the end. I did swear a little bit and yes it was the F word as in why am I F’in why am I doing this. So after a while I was relaxing a bit and enjoying it until the monster 500m long cable with a maximum height of 75m above the ground came in at zip line 13. Yes I was scared, no I didn’t shit my pants, but I really would have preferred that.
It was fun, but not something one with a fear of heights really should try….
So whats worse than 15 flying foxes??? 8 suspension bridges. Yes I then went for a walk through the forest and on the paths were 8 suspension bridges the longest was 150m and wobbled a lot, moved a lot and really was a whole lot worse than the flying foxes. Seriously I hate suspension bridges and I hate them more now.
Into the mist
Finally in an action packed day I went to another animal-arium. This one was the serpentarium which you guessed it is full of snakes. It was not too bad, but i definitely preferred the ranarium full of frogs. Mum I’ve not put any snake photos up so you don’t have to worry.
So tomorrow will be a more leisurely day. Maybe I’ll visit a butterfly farm or cheese factory perhaps. I’ll decide tomorrow, I’m changing hotels, this one is nice, but i’m going for a nicer one that costs a bit more.
So its 4 weeks down and 2 weeks to go from now. Time flies when I’m having fun.
Hope you are all madly dealing with the xmas rush etc. I really don’t mind missing it.
Hasta la vista.