Flying Superman Style over Monteverde

 

   Today was one for the record books! Little did Jeff and I know when we awoke this morning what exciting adventures were waiting for us.

   We were picked up from our hotel at  7:15 by "100% Aventura Adventure Park's" van. 

We were off to go ziplining! We've been ziplining before in both Alaska and Belize, but nothing compares to today's Costa Rica ziplining adventure! 

  Our  100% Aventura Adventure Park Tour includes 11 ziplines, featuring the longest zipline in all of Latin America, a one-mile-long cable that one can do "superman" style, where you are connected to the zipline cable horizontally, with your body facing down as though you are flying like Superman for an uninterrupted mile-long zipline over the forest canopy, plus, they also offer a  Tarzan swing where you are in your harness, on a platform  150 feet off the ground, and then you jump into a freefall of 130 feet. Then you are swung out over the cloud forest treetops. We signed up for everything.

    Here are some of our group's Intrepid adventurers getting rigged up and safety-checked by the "professionals". At least we hoped they were professionals and that today wasn't their first day on the job! They told me that safety was a high priority and that they give instructions in English.

We went on a series of 11 ziplines each getting progressively longer. The rigging for these 9 zip lines was the typical seated in your harness, with one gloved hand holding the wire behind you to brake and the other holding onto the harness. 

After the first 6 zip lines, this sign appeared.

We continued on.

Every zip line was tons of fun;

but they were NOTHING compared to the Superman Zipline!

Here's the sign right before Superman zip line.

 And these two photos show how the "professionals" rigged our Intrepid travelers up for the Superman flight. Note the foot harnesses!

And then off you go with no way to brake!

Here are some photos of Jeff's one-mile-long zip line flight Superman-style:

He's coming in for a landing!

Then it was my turn.

Here I am flying "Superman" style on the 1-mile-long zip line. The longest zipline in Latin America!

     As I flew over the emerald forest canopy, I honestly felt like a bird soaring high in the sky. Looking down at the treetops below was quite amazing. It was windy. It was also exciting and exhilarating.

Then it was time for the Tarzan Swing!

The Tarzan swing is a unique experience, to say the least. You are strapped in your harness, standing on a small platform 150  feet off the ground, and you jump off into a freefall of 130

 feet. Then you swing out over the forest canopy!

Here's Jeff

And here I am doing the Tarzan swing!

  It was an amazing experience truly exhilarating but I realized, I never need to go skydiving!

    It was all glorious fun! We were so happy to have the photos of us "flying" Superman-style on the 1-mile long zip line, the longest in Latin America, and the videos of us doing the Tarzan swing, for these were indeed once-in-a-lifetime adventure experiences!

   After this thrilling morning, our afternoon activities were definitely more mundane but fun. We explored the town of Monteverde, sampled different varieties of the great Costa Rican coffee, and ate delicious food! We especially enjoyed chatting with the shop owners who were so appreciative to see tourists once again. One shop had these two hand-painted tables that unfortunately wouldn't have fit in our luggage. 

Then we started our long hike back up the mountain to our hotel.

But it was well worth it for the sunset from our hotel's mountaintop was once again a glorious sight.

   When the sun goes down, the jungle comes alive, especially in the Monteverde Cloud Forest.

    So to cap off our exciting adventure day, we took a  jungle night walk through the Monteverde Cloud Forest!

  We wanted to go on the jungle night walk to experience the different nocturnal sides of the Monteverde Cloud Forest. Much of Monteverde's wildlife can only be spotted after dark. 

   Armed with our binoculars, headlamps, long-legged pants, boots, and rain jacket we were off. 

    We had 8 in our group. At the start of our tour, our guide told us that each night is entirely different so it was hard to tell what we were going to see. This isn't a zoo. Thanks to the many protected forests and private reserves in the Monteverde area there are literally 26,000  acres of the Cloud Forest Reserve for these wild animals to roam. Our guide told us that seeing a wide variety of animals depends on how lucky we are. 

    We were very lucky tonight! We had numerous chance encounters with the otherwise hidden creatures of the forest.

     For 2 hours, from 6:30-8:30, our experienced guide led us through numerous jungle trails spotting birds, mammals, and reptiles with his expert eyes. 

He used his telescope for some sightings and others we simply would have walked past if he hadn't pointed them out. 

The flashlights we had been handed by the guide in addition to our headlamps provided a modicum of light with which to see. It was very dark.

We followed the guide's instructions:  never veer off the trail and never touch a tree or bush. You never know what could be lurking within.

There were hummingbirds close to the trail.

 

And then a few branches away was a sleeping one.

Later on, we saw a hummingbird's nest where a baby hummingbird was fast asleep. Such a sleeping beauty!

We saw many sleeping birds but there were some birds that were wide awake such as this blue-crowned Motmot.

 The night was alive with songs of frogs and insects filling the air. They were boisterous!

  Often he'd stop and show us animals that were right near the trail like this sleeping Emerald Toucanet.

  Our guide was exceptional. He made this adventure incredibly interesting.  We learned a lot about the flora, animals, and insects that move around the forest at night.

    At one point we were instructed to turn off our flashlights and headlamps. The night surrounded us and so did little glowing eyes! The luminescent Click Beetles were everywhere!

The luminescent Click Beetle, also known as a "Headlight Elator" has two glowing spots on the back of his head and one on his abdomen. We learned that, unlike fireflies, the Click Beetle doesn't flash its lights but rather can increase or diminish its light, dependent upon the level of darkness. 

And speaking of luminescence...While we didn't actually see this luminescence, we did see 2  pictures of the luminescent fungi that grow in the Monteverde Cloud forest.

 Near the end of the night walk, the heavens opened up and it poured buckets. It felt as though we were in the middle of a monsoon. The trails became a sea of mud and the downhill trails were especially slippery. But what an experience! 

 When we finally made it back to the entrance, the rain let up, clouds blew away and we had clear skies! We looked up and the stars were aglow. It was magical. What a perfect ending to a day filled with our incredible adventures in the Monteverde Cloud Forest.