ZIP

On the ferry boat ride to Panajachel it was, once again very obvious that I wasn’t going flying. I was starting to get that sinking feeling that I would carry those gliders all over central America without flying. The whole time I’ve been on this trip, from Colorado to Guatemala, it’s been blowing hard. Now I had only three days to fly here. I would tell anyone going anywhere for three day not to expected to fly more than one day. Well, it’s day two, so one more to go.

Walter had a plan “B” ready to go. We would go to a zip line canopy tour. For those not in the know, a zip line canopy tour is a cable strung through the jungle canopy on which one, in climbing harness zips along a cable hanging from a pulley.

I was excepting to have fun and I did. It was cool to zip along the line through the trees. As far as “touring the canopy”, forget it. You zip by and don’t see much. Plus, you do have to slow yourself down at the other end. Which tends to take your focus away from sight seeing.

In my harness, with a helmet, (which curiously enough was design to protect one from falling rocks), I stepped off the starting point and started zipping through the trees. The forest zoomed passed around me. Seconds later the guy at the other end starts waving a flag at me which is the signal to slow down. The braking is done by your right hand. You have a glove with a thick piece of leather glued across the palm and fingers. With this glove you grab the cable and squeeze. Being a jackass, On one of the eight cables I had my gloves off. I quickly got them on as the other side was coming soon and I wasn’t going to try to grab it with my bare hand.

To back up a bit, in a lot of ways the hike up to the start on the series of zip line cables was the more rewarding. The first stop on the way up was the spider monkeys. These are not wild monkeys, but rescued monkeys living in the jungle. Some locals had bought them as pets but when they became mature them found out they were more than they could handle. One had bit a person and was thrown in jail. Alberto, who built and runs the zip lines, bailed the monkey out of jail and now it lives in trees on the grounds. I threw them some bananas and watched them swinging around.

Alberto walked with us up to the top. On the way he pointed out a few things. There was a flower from a plant that blooms for a day once every two years. There was a tree that,, when in the sun turns red and the bark peels. It’s called the tourist tree. The path wound around, crossing streams with cable bridges.

At the end of the day it was time to film the Earth Roamer. We needed some more shots of camping. The area was beautiful so we took multiple shots of the Earth Roamer driving in, setting up. Keith would get in and write in his journal. We need one ending shot for each show so this way we got some extra shots so if we can’t find a good spot in each place we go, we were covered. As the shots had to come from different angles with different background, we had to keep moving things around. I moved one of the cars. When I got back, Keith had a paragliding helmet on, Don shooting. I was wondering what the hell is going on, when they both crack up laughing.