ALL GEARED UP TO ZIP LINE! - As one of the girls on the tour said, we look like Bob the Builder!
Just got back from our best day trip yet. We spent two days at the Adventure Park, Hotel Vista Golfo 25 K from Punteranas. The lodge is situated in the small community of Tajo Alto/Miramar high up in the mountains. The views from the restaurant there were incredible, always something to see.
While we were eating lunch the first day we saw a troop of about 10 white faced monkeys swing across a group of trees. The next morning we saw a couple of toucans fly around along with countless other birds. Heard the howler monkeys all around but never saw any. Also lots of fruit trees with produce ripe for picking. Limes, bananas and oranges (best we’ve tasted in a long time)
Since this is the low season, not many guests at the lodge, in fact we had it all to ourselves. Spent most of our meals (food was really good) talking to the the owners (a German couple) or the staff. They had a couple of students from an international tourism course from Germany doing their 6 month internship there so we got to know one of them, Kim, quite well. She did a great job looking after us!
The big draw for this resort is their Zip Line Tour. Found them on the internet and after reading all the good reviews on trip advisor, thought we’d check them out. With 25 zip lines and 2 rappels over 11 waterfalls, how could it not be fun?
A group of 10 of us (8 people came from other resorts for the tour) rode horses from the hotel, further up into the mountains to the first zip line. That took just about an hour. You’ll see from the pictures it started out sunny.....but not quite half way thru, it poured, and I mean torrentially! It is the rainy season now, but crap, it’s supposed to rain in the afternoon and we were out in the morning. It rained so hard that we didn’t even bother swimming in the one waterfall mountain pool where they usually take a break. We were soaked to the skin already. All the women (and a few of the guys) were shaking uncontrollable for a while but we eventually warmed up. Good thing we’re close to the equator!
So even though the sun didn’t ever come back out, we did have a good time and it eventually stopped raining....about the time we were finished! Made taking pictures a bit difficult but got a few good ones in the album.
Zip line tours in the rain are physically more demanding than in good weather. The leather brake pad they put on your one glove gets soaked and doesn’t work as well so you have to brake with both hands. And I’m not sure how but boy did I use my abs. Two days later and they’re still sore!
The second day we were there we also did an ATV tour. Neither Dave or I have driven them before and they had a great little course set up to get you used to them. It’s not something I was that interested in before but after that experience, I think we’re both open to do that type of tour in the future. It was fun!
CHECK OUT THE ALBUM!