Zip Along Cassidy
Breakfast wasn't bad, typical fare with custom omelets to order, lots of fresh fruit and hormigas. That would be: ants. They seemed to have taken over the corner table. Ants seem to come in two varieties here: really small and really big. These were the small ones so maybe the wait staff thought they wouldn't eat much.
Off on the bus to the stables. My mount was called Herman, which everyone thought was funny for some reason. Then we started out. Herman, like all other horses I guess, has his own unique personality. His was type 'A.' Only one person in our group had any significant riding experience and apparently Herman had some kind of issue with her horse. When she went, I went, which was pretty much most of the time.
After a while my riding partner (she seemed to be my riding partner because it was us out in front by a quarter mile for most of the day) had pity and backed off the gas a bit. I made it in one piece to the stables near the top of the mountain but had worries for a moment about my immediate fitness to fly through the treetops.
I had the day before spent an hour or so in an Austrian cable car in a peaceful excursion through the trees on the way up to another set of zip lines. I watched as the other folks hooked up to the lines and set off through the jungle and felt pretty confident that this would be a piece of cake. But this setup definitely was not built by the Austrian. And judging from the rust and generally haphazard way the platforms were wrapped around the various old growth trees, it wasn't done recently either.
Whereas the prior day's apparatus had some kind of ingenious T-bar contraption to hold on to and twist when it was time to brake, this setup consisted of a wheel that ran along the wire and a leather glove gizmo for the brake. But don't squeeze, or you'll rip your arm off. And yes, I did squeeze once, and yes, I felt the tendons stretch into abnormally long configurations. I had my first twinge of fear (or excitement, if you will).
I will say that this is about as close as you get to a cross between riding a motorcycle without a helmet and a roller coaster. The fact that you look down into a drop that will make you monkey food should something silly happen almost makes it feel like flying except for the 'zip' noise that gives this pastime its nickname. That and the fact that you're holding on for dear life trying to remember not to rip your arm off. There were only two or three incidents that thankfully, didn't involve me.
The first involved a boy of about 8 that his brilliant parents thought would enjoy having the hell scared out of him, and that of his 9-year-old brother. They didn't make it all the way to the other side and had to be dragged in. The third involved a woman that paid not heed to the frantic guide on the receiving end waving to her to brake. He braked for her. This ended up spinning her around and sending her a short way back out on the cable.
Done with the fun we regrouped with the herd and I had what I thought was a civilized conversation with Herman. He nodded, wiggled his ears and generally seemed to understand that this was not in fact a horse race, but a leisurely walk home to get some more hay or something. What I found out was that he was merely humoring me and had every intention of getting home as fast as he could and getting me off his back.
I learned that there is a point in a horse's gait, at a certain speed, traveling downhill, where the rider is projected straight up into the air and comes down hard on the saddle just when said horse is in the middle of going up again. This produces a relatively painful sensation in the rider's hindquarters. Attempt to mitigate this activity will produce any number of reactions from horsey. One of which is to turn his wild-eyed head around as if to say, "If you yank on these reins any more I will bite you." Needless to say, the ride home seemed like an eternity, even as it actually took about half the time of the trip up.
Tomorrow's adventure: driving on the (supposed) CR roads to the playa (that would be 'the beach.'
