One of the top tourist excursions in the tropical country of Costa Rica is zip lining, also known as an aerial runway, the flying fox or death slide. Doesn’t that last one make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside? Me too.
We decided to take the route that follows a river and crosses waterfalls giving you an opportunity to take a dive. With 11 platforms, a swimming hole and dreams of monkey filled trees, we were excited and ready by 8am. Instead of a greeting from the taxi driver, we got a call informing us that they were “repairing a cable” so our excursion was pushed back until 3pm. I’m not sure if we needed to know that we were the first and only to use the cable today, but I suppose it just adds more thrill to the adventure. Let the death slide begin!
Before the zip lining, let me give you a very quick tour of Montezuma. The main road has a market, a bar, several tour kiosks and a few restaurants.
My favorite part of the town is how the main street literally drops off to the sandy beach. That’s it, no more driving from here on out!
Ok, off we go to play in the trees! Safety first as they gear us up into these darling outfits.
Instead of describing each individual platform (because they’re all similar) here is a fun group of photos as we fly through the jungle tree tops of Montezuma!
A bit through the zip lining you can begin to hear the faint sound of rushing water splashing off of rocks. At this point in the hot day, it sounds so sweet and extremely inviting!
As soon as I spotted the rope swing across the water hole, I was edge side ready to go. Can I just remind myself through this blog… “I’m waterfall jumping to a rope swing in Costa Rica on a Thursday afternoon!” Ok then, I wanted to embrace that for a second. Moving on to the photos!
Carina’s turn! For her first jump, she went with the “frog” approach.
…and for her second form, the “scared frog”.
In my opinion, her rope swing technique was brilliant! Why wait to hit the refreshing water when you can simply drag your entire body throughout the swing?
Instead of the frog, this friendly boy from Austria went for, what I would call, the “fish out of water”.
For my second round, Carina complimented the perfect “starfish” dismount from the swing.
After our hour in the water, we climb out like water soaked, happy kids and get ready for the short hike to the final flying fox.
Flying through the green tops of Costa Rica… Check.
Jumping off waterfalls… Check.
Rope swing to a swimming hole… Check.
Carina finally seeing a real monkey? To be continued…
Her Happy Trails 
Ahhhh….the vicarious pleasures of traveling with Erika, via blog. Wanted to do this when our 2011 Panama Canal cruise stopped at Costa Rica, but John was a no go. It would have been much tamer than yours, I’m sure. Parasailing in the BVI is the most adventurous I’ve gotten, and that was over 10 years ago.