Thursday February 10th - "aaaaahhhh"

Jen gets ready for her first fall!

HIGH UP!

Gearing up with our pal Gerald...

We woke up today super excited for our ziplining adventure! We were scheduled to be picked up by “Wing Nuts” at 10:30am at Sol y Mar, a restaurant the end of our dirt road, where we anxiously waited. Keep in mind this is Central America so we really weren’t sure what kind of vehicle we were looking for or who would be picking us up. Things aren’t exactly super official down here, when you go to a restaurant it is often hard to tell who works there and who is an employee. We waited until about 11am when we realized that this wasn’t just Costa Rica time, where everything runs on its own schedule, and that they probably weren’t coming. Ugh time for the walk into town, (something that we are beginning to dread, especially in mid-morning heat) to go ask the tour agents we scheduled with where the Wing Nuts people were. Upon arriving they called Wing Nuts who had apparently forgotten to write down our reservation yesterday. No hard feelings, that’s just how things are here, they would pick us up at 2pm instead. We killed some time and headed back to the end of our dirt road, and at about 2:15 a Tico pulled up next to us in his little SUV wearing a Wing Nuts shirt. He introduced himself as Freddie and we chatted as he drove us through town and out down some windy roads we have never explored. We ended at a beautiful wooden house in the jungle where Freddie introduced us to our other guide, Gerald. Gerald told us that the 2 o’clock tour that day was scheduled for 10 “very fat people” who apparently often have to be rescued off of the ziplines. They had cancelled at the last moment so it would be just the 2 of us today! We harnessed up and piled back into Freddie’s mini-SUV and drove straight up what must have been a mountain. Then he parked in the trees and we hopped out and were guided into a marked path in the jungle. We climbed up a long wooden bridge (think playground style) until we ended in a platform up a tree. The tour consisted of 9 long zipline cables between 10 platforms up in the trees, taking about 2 and half hours to complete. Before the first cable Kelly held her camera up to take a picture of the view but was called out by Freddie for the fact that her hand was ferociously shaking. It was mutually decided that Jenny would go first. The feeling of flying through the canopy was incredible and the view was indescribable and impossible to capture in photos, not for lack of trying. At one point Jenny attempted to take a video while whizzing along and forgot the concept of breaking at the end of the cable before slamming into Gerald and knocking him backwards (luckily just into the tree and not off the platform). At one point we sat down for a picnic of fresh fruit and oatmeal cookies on one of the larger platforms with a built in bench. As we munched on pineapple and melon we looked out through the jungle canopy for a breathtaking view of the beach. Here we learned that Freddy had built the entire course by using ropes to climb and suspend himself in the jungle canopy! Needless to say we had an amazing day. Freddie and Gerald were awesome and spoke great English so we chatted away all day. Well, mostly they made merciless fun of us as we shrieked and laughed while whizzing through the jungle canopy. Better than tour guides, these were our first Tico friends! We finished the tour, went back to the wooden house where we bought Wing Nuts shirts and paid for our best adventure yet.

After ziplining, the Wing Nuts owner, a woman from British Columbia who had moved to Samara 29 years ago with 3 small children, dropped us off in town. We haven’t quite figured out what it is about Samara that compels so many people to up and move here permanently, but we have meant dozens. We stopped by TEFL so Kelly could drop off her unpaid deposit (buzzkill). Then we headed back to our house to get our laptops so we could do some travel research. We trudged back into town with our laptops in our backpacks, for what seemed like the thousandth time to use our newly discovered free WiFi on the beach at Bar Olas. We have to remind ourselves how good this long walk is for us every time we do it, and needless to say a heavy backpack definitely inresifies the heat. At Olas, travel research turned mostly into Skype time and we left without much progress in planning our next adventure. Time to go home and shower our super sweaty sandy jungle bodies – it is veryyy hard to stay clean here. Tonight was Ladies Night at Tabunuco and after repeatedly breaking into the song “ladies night and the feelings right…oooh whaat a night” (the only part we know) we were ready to head out for a night on the town. On our way out we stopped in to see our TEFL graduate friends (Jessica, Amanda & Aryan) at their house, which is right in the middle of town and a 2-minute walk from the beach. Sitting on actual leather couches and armchairs in their high-ceilinged living room it occurred to us that we live in the poor rural area of town….not sure how we had never noticed before. Amanda and Jessica were working on their dance moves and perfecting their harlem shake (a ghetto dance move with your shoulders) when we walked in (while Aryan watched and rolled his eyes). Kelly, being the harlem shake’s biggest fan and unofficial master, jumped right in with some tips and pointers. We all went to Arriba, the bar we had gone to on our first night here, and sipped on enormous long island iced teas – which came with an equally enormous bill, well for Samara at least. The bartender at Arriba has the hots for Kelly and showed his affection with a complimentary tequila shot – now she was really ready to harlem shake. The 5 of us walked to Tabunuco, which is described by our Costa Rica highlight book to be “the most sophisticated bar and restaurant in Samara.” The dance floor was illuminated with flashing disco-style lighting and was a little less than sophisticated but a whole lot of fun. We danced for hours and hours, and since this bar is outside and right on the beach we were not free from the Costa Rican heat. We were all sweat buckets when we finally called it a night and headed home…well, except Jessica who was having way too much fun and stayed out chatting to a Tico friend of hers. We pit-stopped at Aryan and Amanda’s place before walking back out of town to our house, so physically exhausted after our long day and with our eyes closed before out heads hit our pillows.