Off the Edge

I couldn't grab onto anything. I was just falling and falling. Granted, there was some resistance, but not enough to give me any sort of security. It didn't matter how much I squeezed my hand around the rope, it just burned my hand through the glove, and there was still at least 100 feet of the 160 foot drop left to go and I had no control. So I twisted and turned myself down the cliff wall in front of me to the yelled explanation of the guides above and below me of what I should be doing, though to my knowledge, I was already doing it... I guess I wasn't...

Today in Arenal, we awoke early to go either canyoning, that is repelling down waterfalls and canyons, or horseback riding around the volcano next to our hotel. I opted to go canyoning and after a bus ride and a hike up some mountains, we began to descend, vertically. Our first drop was the biggest and was next to a huge waterfall. A 160-foot-drop, it obviously wasn't flawless, but still was extremely fun. We were instructed to put our left hand on the part of the rope above us, and the right hand was what stopped our fall and was to go on the rope next to our hip, releasing and gripping to adjust our rate of fall. For some reason, I just couldn't pull the rope tight enough to stop or slow down and soon enough, I think the guides began to stop and start me in rhythm with my attempts to push off the cliff wall.

At our next attempt, we were to face an 80 foot repel. The first 40 feet were to be free fall, and then you had to repel of the wall behind a waterfall. “I'm going to be able to hold on this time!” I told myself. And I was right. As I turned around to plunge backwards off the ledge, I sturdied my hands on the roads and pushed off, released my hands a little bit and begin to swing back... right to the ledge. I hadn't dropped a foot. So I tried again and just landed right back on the ledge, again, even after making an effort to almost completely release my hands. Finally, on the next try, I combined releasing my hands with wiggling my body to coax the rope into slipping through my harness. I dropped right below the ledge and then got caught again. “Show me your hands!” the guide said, asking me to completely remove my hands from the ropes, but I hadn't heard him, for I finally had gotten the hang of it and was busy getting ready to start repelling off the waterfall as my sneakers flooded and water splashed everywhere.

We had a few more canyons to repel down, one of which was the the plain old dry cliff, with no waterfalls to be seen, but a good one to make sure you've really figured out this whole deal with the ropes. The last one went down another waterfall, but the second to last one was definitely the most challenging. The whole time we had been following a single river that cascaded over various cliffs. On the last repel, we were repelling off the wall behind the waterfall the whole time. This part of the waterfall began with a 45 degree angle, so this time, instead of hopping off a ledge as usual, you essentially just walked backwards until you were being completely held up by your harness and then repelled from there. The water was particularly strong here and there were also walls on either side of you, meaning you were either in the waterfall or repelling ungracefully from side-to-side.

I would say this topped the charts of the best activity we did in Costa Rica. I got to learn something completely new while exploring Costa Rica in a new and challenging way.