Canyoning in Banos

SHARLA: Slept in a little this morning...okay, well slept in is quite an overstatement for me. The mattress I have here is only about 3 inches thick. Marsha and Camille have normal mattresses, so I guess I have the kiddie bed. I have had achy bones every day at this hostel. Right now, I'm listening to a car alarm go off....for about the last 15 minutes. So much for peace and quiet!

Anyway, we had a really garlicy lunch here at the French restaurant attached to our hostel. Whew! It was good, but really....back off the garlic a little!

We got to the tour company at around 1:30, and were fitted for our wetsuits, shoes, and a jacket. We had two other people in our group from California who were in their late 20's. I was a little bit nervous, but I figured it would go away once we got started with the canyoning. We drove for about 20 minutes and turned off the highway onto a dirt road for about 10 minutes. We picked up a couple of school boys walking home and dropped them off at their homes. Can you imagine letting your children catch rides from total strangers? Apparently, it's an every day practice, and no one seems scared. That's pretty school. Hope that the innocence stays for a while here.

Once we got out of the van, we put on all of our gear, and began to climb up for around 20 minutes. And when I say up....I mean UP! These people climb up everything like mountain goats! It's hard for me I guess since where we live has NO climbing and is perfectly flat. We made it to the first descent just before the first waterfall, and got our safety lesson. My anxiety had disappeared, but guickly reappeared when I saw what we had to do to go down. My huge fear of heights didn't help much. Our first waterfall was about 4 meters (around 12 feet), and although I was shaky, I managed to get down pretty good. We had to walk a little between waterfalls, and it was a slippery slope in places! The second waterfall was about 15 meters (45 feet), and I was still pretty nervous. The guide asked me if I was ready, and I replied, "Do I have a choice?" He didn't understand the word choice, so I said, "Can I say no?" And he just laughed. Guess that's a no....gotta go down....no going back now! By the third one, I had gained some confidence, and went down much faster. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous! Everything was so green and lush, and looking back up at the top of the waterfall from the bottom was really satisfying knowing we had just descended from there.

The last waterfall was 30 meters, around 100 feet. It was definitely a little more challenging, but by this time, I knew what I was doing, and it was a blast! The guides were very patient, and very good about helping with the nerves. One of the guides went down face first off the tall waterfall, so it looked like he was running straight down! I don't think I'm ready for that yet...haha. At the end we got to slide down a pretty tall waterfall, with our ropes still attached of course. In the middle, on the way down, was a huge pool of water, and I wasn't expecting it. Woohoo! How fun! Then at the end, we slid down a smaller waterfall with no ropes and went flying at the end. It was a great day!

We had a sandwich when we got back, and ran into a couple of the guides from the rafting tour, who invited us to go dancing with them tonight. Sounds like fun....so I guess it's in the shower and then off to The Leprachaun! Biking tomorrow to Rio Verde or Rio Negro....whichever we feel like, and then on to Puyo the next day. May not have internet service, so I'll write when we get back to Banos!