Road to Retiring- Day 8

El Santuario Canopy Tour

2/15

Up early for the 7 AM zip line as the forest gets pretty toasty by noon.  We are loaded into a van by Charon and meet Cuva and Ehrlich.  She from Sweden, he from Montreal.  3 more ladies join us as well as a freelance guide, Alex,  and we journey through a palm tree plantation.  Charon tells us that the nuts are harvested for oil.  The plantations are everywhere and harvest happens every 3-6 weeks.  Talk about sustainable energy and multiple use of a product.

The zip line company, El Santuario, run by Diego Correa, is posh, clean, safe and super fun.  The area where we are served coffee and fruit while being fitted for our clean, new gear is really attractive with guanacaste wood tables and wonderful sinks made of natural stone. 

Up the mountain in our vans to our first platform.  We are shown the basics and I marvel at how simple and safe this will be, even for the older lady who is sporting a lot of weight and the children that are 6- 10 years of age. When I did this in Nicaragua, we applied the breaks on the wire with our dominant hand and held on to the connect rope to keep from spinning!  And we jumped off diesel truck tires and sketchy wood platforms.  These are nicely maintained steel  or wood decks and lots of quality metal staircases. 

 
There's a bunch of suspension bridges too which have always scared me, but I'm hooked into a safety wire and I do fine.  I'm surprised at the climb up one tree which is 150 feet  tall, even though I'm still not able to do the treehouse at Disneyland, but here, it's all good. 
John even does one upside down and now I wish I'd tried it too.  11 zips- 1 lasting over a minute at a mile and half , several suspension bridges, a ton of butterfly's and toucans.  Plus funny, personable guides.  At the end, the Tico casado is served.We would recommend this tour company to anyone.

We come back and decide that pool time with a book and WiFi and no driving is on the agenda for the rest of the day.  The pool is perfect, lots of cool folk to chat with and we round off the day with a much needed rest.  Dinner, we share the Steak special and a salad, and they bring us 2 small steaks with chimmichurra sauce.  Excellent service, good food.

We walk down to an art gallery, gift shop and they have some super impressive works by local artists.  I'm really loving looking at the work, especially some mixed media and contemporary work.  

Intentions to go do karaoke get sidelined though as John feels a touch of stomach rumble and we decide instead to watch War on DVD in the room.  I sleep through the film and then after it's over wake up until 2 AM.  Excuse me for one female moment but I hate menopause and all folk living with older women should lend much sympathy to our moods and physical changes as our bodies go into full scale revolt against us.  Hot flashes and insomnia are my personal devils in this fight! Tomorrow we will hit some local surf again.  The physical exercise is generally a good salve to whatever ails the body.

The maids leave elephants, swans and other critters on the bed.