My Fear of Heights and A Taste of Home

This past weekend was definitely one to remember. The most exciting part was definitely when I went on what they called a "canopy tour"--including 7 zip lines, several rope bridges and a "Tarzan Swing". 

Zip lining was incredible. The park where we went has the longest zip line in Latin America that stretches for 1590m. It took me and my partner, Megan, 1 1/2 minutes to get across it. If it weren't scary enough to be this high off the ground, though, imagine jumping off a platform at around the same height. That was my experience with the Tarzan swing. As I walked on a suspended bridge to the edge of an abyss, I was strapped to a bungee cord. After looking down to see what awaited me, I suddenly remembered why I strongly dislike heights. Then, before I could say a word in protest, the gate protecting me from my fate was opened and, in one quick moment, I was shoved into a free fall. I am still alive to write this, so that's obviously a good sign. But, regardless of whether I intended to or not, I let loose a blood curdling scream and, when I think about it now, I can still feel the sensation of my stomach shooting up to my throat. However, if the chance came, I would totally go again. 

My memories of home came on Sunday when we went on a hike in the National Cloud Forrest. In so many ways it reminded me of Oregon. The sky was cloudy and misting; it was chilly but not cold; we were surrounded by lush foliage in all shades of green and there was a wonderful fresh woodsy/wet smell emanating from the ground. There were two things that were very different about this forest, though, from back home. First, there were swarms of hummingbirds  that huddled around the feeders at the entrance to the park (they weren't even scared of humans so I go to stand about a foot away from them to take pictures). I have never seen so many hummingbirds in one place in my life. Second, the size of everything in the forest was far beyond normal. I'm not talking about the trees being tall, but more along the lines of ferns the size of my body or flowers that were larder than my forearm. It was beautiful to see God's creation and I'm thankful we got a chance to go. 

Overall, this weekend was one of excitement and beauty and I feel very blessed that I got to go and share it with my two roomies. 


Attached are a few pics of what I referred to above:

The Tarzan Swing

The longest zip line in Latin America

Megan and me on the zipline

A picture of a leaf that I liked

The sunset on Friday night from our room

Sorry you have to look at this one on its side. This is what I was talking about with the extra large foliage. It's a leaf that Dom and I found on the ground.

A random caterpillar that decided to grace us with its presence while we were waiting for the buses to come.

Chau!