Costa Rica Day 1.

Wow! Today was amazing! Okay, where to begin. I left early this morning to go to a meeting place right at the edge of the rain forest. There I met my guide, and the three other people I would be spending my day with and we set off in our guide's van. We went pretty far into the forest and then climbed up a ladder leading into a tree. Once we got up into the canopy, we strapped on harnesses and helmets and one by one we hooked on to the metal cord stretching from the tree we were in to a tree in the distance and pushed off. That's right, I was going zip lining baby! It was one of the most exhilarating things I have ever done. It was amazing. At first when I kicked off, everything was a whirl of color, but once I steadied myself, I enjoyed one of the most beautiful scenes ever. I was surrounded by greens of every shade dotted by a sudden burst of red or yellow as I passed a flower or bird. There were also the most vibrant browns I have ever seen. Before this trip, I didn't even know brown could be vibrant. Well, you learn something new every day. When I looked up, the sky that I could see through the green was mostly cloudy, we had had some rain earlier. But when I got to a break in the vegetation while crossing a river, the sun broke through the clouds and shone a beam of light directly over me! I was in awe. No where could be more beautiful. After what seemed like an eternity, and having my butt get a bit sore from a pretty abrupt stop, my first zip line was over. On to the next one! You see, we were going to travel in a five mile circle around the forest on zip lines. Every now and then, the lines were studded with platforms in the trees where you unhooked from one line and onto another. The one I had landed on just now was a eight by ten foot ledge built on a massive branch of a tree with railing all around except for two places where you entered and exited. The trunk was almost covered in bromeliads in red, yellow, pink, and purple. Looking over the rail, there was a 100 foot drop to the ground, blocked in parts by massive branches about ten feet in circumference. I saw many other trees like this in my journey through the sky today, some with orchids, some with bromeliads, some with both and others combined. There were massive liana vines stretching from the ground to the bottom of the canopy, and large leafy philodendron. We also saw animals in the form of macaws, birds of paradise, monkeys, and even a jaguar, spotted at a distance. All of these made a soothing background noise, along with the splashing of the river, that calmed me down and invigorated me at the same time. It almost made you forget the heat. Once we were almost done, it started to rain. No, not rain, pour. No, not even pour. It was like the sky opened up and great torrents of rain were falling on us, soaking us in seconds. It was over withing the next five minutes, but it left the world squeaky clean and smelling of wet earth and sweet flowers. Man, I love that smell. So fresh and clean. It cooled us down drastically and I was in euphoria. Once it stopped raining, the world was hot again, and you could see the vegetation steam as the water evaporated, it was so cool. Well, all good things come to an end eventually, and we finally got to the end of our trip. I was sad to leave, but I was also hungry, so we unstrapped our harnesses and left the rain forest for the urban jungle of San José. a man in our group coming into our ledge. another woman in our group landing.