Our day in Coats Rica Oscar Brown and zip lining

[judyf]

Costa Rica-Wednesday 3-23-05

 

It was hot, but our ship didn’t arrive till noon. I booked our tours with Oscar Brown. I had booked the zip lining tour for me and the canal tour for my mother. We both enjoyed our tours.

 

We found Oscar’s van and we waited for everyone to arrive. It took a little while but we were one of the first off the ship. We were able to wait in a van out of the sun while he gathered everyone together. He split everyone up and I then moved to the zip lining van.

 

I will explain my mother’s canal tour first. There was a family of 4 and another family of 5, I think. Major complaint from everyone was there wasn’t any AC in their van. Also as I have read on the Costa Rica board, Oscar did stop for some private conversations. Not a real problem but enough that they talked about it on the van and my mother brought it to my attention and she doesn’t read the message boards.

 

She loved the tour, saw different sections of Costa Rica, a banana plantation, held a Sloth and went on the canal tour by small boat. The group was split up into 2 boats. She liked that they weren’t crowded onto one boat. She really enjoyed this tour.

 

My mother was a little unsure of us splitting up in port and Oscar did a great job of staying in touch with our driver Dan. Once I even talked to her on the cell phone they carried. It was a secure feeling knowing they had contact with each other in case there were any problems with the vans. Oscar even brought my mother to the store we were traveling to, as her tour was completed already. At the store I got 4 pounds of coffee, 2 large bottles of salsa and 2 large bottles of vanilla, all for $19.00 US money.

 

Now onto the zip lining tour, WOW! What an experience.

 

We had 7 of us that were doing the zip lining. Two couples, a father and daughter and me. The mother and daughter of the family went horseback riding at the same location and then said they enjoyed it.

 

We all decided to go to a closer zip lining operation at Oscar’s recommendation. Almond and Corals was an hour and a half drive away and the place we went to Brisas de la Jungla I would say was about a half hour drive if that.

 

We went up to the top and got all geared up with the safety equipment. Then we walked up to the first platform after a safety presentation. We had two guides with us and we got a little more safety instruction. I work with safety every day and I must say the safety aspect of the operation impressed me.

 

One guide goes first and the other guide follows after the group. This was a nice feeling knowing there was someone on each end. More on this later.

 

I thought I was going to have a problem with the height but with all the safety equipment that wasn’t an issue. A few in our group said the same thing.

 

There were 12 or 13 zip lines and from what I heard that's more then the Almond Corals location. There were seven of us in our group four in our group had no problems at all. Three of us had 1or 2 fast landings and a few times we came short of the platform. If this happens the guides come to rescue you as they had to do for me.

 

I had one landing that was too fast but not too bad and one that I didn't make it to the platform at all. I was hanging there over the rain forest. I will say I was really scared at this point as I had no idea what would happen. This is one of the main reasons I’m posting this info here so that if anyone else has this happen to them they will not get as scared as I was.

 

As I was hanging there quite a ways from the platform and the guide that was already at the platform was trying to get to me, all of a sudden I heard someone coming on the zip line. At this point I was really concerned, read (scared to death) that the other guide was going to run right into me. What they do is blow a whistle and that tells them the line is clear. I thought the guide thought it was clear and was heading straight for me. I knew I couldn’t get to the platform before he hit me. I was all upset over nothing as he was coming to rescue me. I almost had a heart attack! I was the first one to have this happened so I had no idea what would happen next. If this happens to you don’t worry.

 

It was funny cause after that we asked our guides how many more platforms there was, as we lost count and they didn’t tell us till we had 4 left to go. Our guides didn’t speak good English but could get the point across to us, most of the time. One thing to remember once you start there's no backing out you have to finish!

 

I'm really glad I did it as it was the highlight of the cruise but I did it once and I wouldn't do it again. How many people can say they went zip lining over the Costa Rican rain forest?

 

After we were done we went back to the starting station and they had bowls of fresh fruit and water, it was nice. They gave as all calendars from Costa Rica.

 

Now it’s time to go to the banana plantation, I will never look at a banana the same way. I believe we were told they work an 8 hour day for $15.00. There’s a lot of work involved to get those bananas to our local store for us to get for 50 cents a pound. Both my mother and I enjoyed this part of our tours.

 

On the way to the banana plantation we stopped and held a sloth and got pictures. We also saw a sloth in one of the trees while we were zip lining. Then we went to the store where my mother caught up with our tour.