Zip Lining In the Cloud Forest

One of the things I really wanted to do in Costa Rica was to zip through the canopy. I had done some internet research prior to coming and settled on Selvatura Park as being within the cloud forest preserve, of a goodly duration, and not stressing adrenaline. Shortly after we had arrived yesterday, I had made arrangements at the hotel desk to be picked up this morning at 10:30 – no need for the crack of dawn, we’re retired! Here we are – geared up and ready for adventure.

We hiked up to our starting point, separated into Spanish and English speaking groups to receive our how-to and safety lecture, then were hooked up and away we went! Below, Ken’s heading down the wire, then I’m coming in for a landing and being unhooked by one of the guides.

There were 15 cables in ~4 groups (I don’t remember) with the longest cable being ~1 km. It was all great fun once I relaxed and trusted the braking system. We only had to brake ourselves via our gloves on the first couple of cables. After that, they used a rope and pulley system which you can kind of see in the above left picture. You just had to relax and enjoy the ride.

I was surprised by how secure I felt. While you could get up a good bit of speed on the longer lines, the initial acceleration was low. Not the dropping sensation I had feared. Which, of course, made sense if I had stopped to think about the physics of a hanging cable. Especially one that needed to be fairly taut. Only on the long line did I have a bit of disorientation. Then I only needed to fix my eyes on the horizon and everything was OK.

For those who want to get an idea of the sensation, here’s the movie a guide took with my camera while he was going down the 1 km line.

Going down the 1 km zip line in Selvatura Park, Costa Rica

By the time we finished the zip lining and had lunch, it was past 2pm. We had also bought tickets for the hanging bridge walk but decided to come back tomorrow for that. While waiting for the bus to take us back, a woman gave us her tickets to the Butterfly house so we have two things to do tomorrow. Looks like it will be a full day.

All in all, I had a great time and would thoroughly recommend Selvatura’s zip line experience. The only bad part about it was the sections we had to hike between the zip line groups.  These were mostly uphill and I was gasping and wheezing most of the time – I just couldn’t get any oxygen in. I felt a little sheepish since I was the only one doing this, but… I asked the guide about the altitude and he said 3 km (10,000 ft) but I later looked at the GPS map and it said ~5000 ft. Not that high, but I was still wheezing.

That night we went to Sophia’s for dinner. It’s located near El Olivo and we had noticed it last night. The food was excellent again.