costa rica: part 3

On Monday afternoon,

we finished our rafting trip

and headed west to the arenal volcano.

Tuesday morning we woke up early for

some canyoneering and rappelling.

To get to the Lost Canyon,

we traveled the back roads of costa rica

via a jungle limo.

We rappelled down three waterfalls.

The first waterfall was 30 feet and was for practice,

the second waterfall was 150ft,

and the third waterfall was a 210ft rappel.

Some of us on the trip have a fear of heights.

The scariest part is when you move off

the platform and hang out over the edge

putting all your weight onto the rope.

However, once you came within an arms

reach of the guide he would quickly clip

you in and elbow you off over the edge

before you could even rethink what you

were doing and change your mind.

Very effective!

Everyone in our group did all

three waterfall rappels.

Not only was the rappelling exciting

but hiking down the canyon was

just as much fun.

There were watering holes

we jumped into,

smaller waterfalls we climbed down,

but the highlight was when the guides

used their bodies as dams to create

a mock flash flood.

(I know this video is on my brother’s blog

but I had to post it too)

Flash Flood Video

What none of us realized was that

hiking down this canyon meant at

some point we would have to hike out.

It was a steep uphill climb out of the canyon

but luckily they had a homemade lunch

waiting for us at the top.

We looked like a bunch of wet dogs

coming out of the canyon but

we had a blast!