Our Costa Rican 4th of July (Canopy Tour)

Happy, happy 4th of July everyone. It IS my favorite holiday of the year, by far. We are usually at the Frisco parade with all of our BFF's and having the time of our lives. After the parade we head to Montezuma for a fun evening of 2 hour fire works and all night partying with friends. It's awesome and we hope everyone is having a great and safe night. Today we decided to celebrate by going on our first ever canopy tour. We chose Pura Aventura for the canopy tour. It was amazing. As usual, Jack woke very early and went surfing. I woke and took out my earplugs at around 7 and as I lay in bed listening to the jungle wake up I hear someone honking a horn. Two honks then nothing. A few minutes later 2 honks and then nothing. A few minutes later 2 more honks and nothing. I scram out of bed just knowing that it is our ride for the canopy tour. By the time I got out of bed, dressed and ran outside the van is pulling out of the driveway. Oh well. Usually, I would have been stressed to the max thinking that we missed the whole deal, where is Jack, pick up the phone, oh, we don't have one, WHAT THE HECK? Today, I just poured myself a cup of coffee and went outside and sat in the hammock and enjoyed every minute of the morning. Jack arrived and I didn't even tell him about the tour showing up at 8 a.m. He would have reacted as I did. Big deal. We got breakfast in our bellies and packed and figured out what we were going to wear and all of that. At 10 a.m. here came the van, again, to pick us up. Round two. We don't know exactly what happened with our reservation but it got screwed up somehow. We also thought we had signed up for the horse back ride as well but they didn't have us down for that. No biggie. We were all ready to go and the driver was nice and we spoke spanish back and forth for a bit and then I realized he spoke excellent English. His name was Gustavo, but we called him Tavo as he told us to. Tavo was funny, nice, 28 years old, grew up in Santa Cruz. We had a lot to talk about. We knew some of the same people. Jack was sitting in the way back of the van with the girls and out of no where he said, "stop the van!!" Jack was carsick. It was close. He almost hurled and Tavo had to pull over and let Jack get his act together. Jack got in the front seat and rode the rest of the way there not well at all. He was dehydrated from yesterday. Plus he's been surfing and swallowing so much sea water he had just had enough. We get to the place and Jack says he thinks he might not go. Of course, that won't stop us, but, bummer for him. I get him a glass of water and a coke and he feels better after about a half hour. We had to wait for the other guests anyway and it was perfect timing for him and us. We meet Abel, a guide, and pile in the bed of the dually. We barrel down this farm road and cross a couple of rivers and it was bumpy and fun. We ride through cow pastures and now we are headed up the mountain. Jose, who was behind us on his quad jumps in the bed of the truck, knocks fists with the other Tico's (that's the new handshake). I hold out my fist for him and he cracks up and we knock fists and the Tico's think that was funny. It broke the ice with the 3 gringa's (us) in the back of this truck and we all talk, in Spanish, and they couldn't have been more fun. They spoke pretty good English and the 2 paying Tico's, who were probably 20, did as well. They grew up in Playa Grande and we had seen of of the guy's surf Playa Grande last time we were here. We get to the top of the mountain and get our harnesses on and are debriefed, briefly. Up on the platform we go. Time to jump into the Abyss and hope we don't fall into the Jungle, wizzing on our cable at unthinkable speeds. The first guests go. We are literally strapped into a harness, given some gloves, a helmet. Now that's a concept. A helmet. I'm thinking, "if something happens and this harness breaks, I am up here WAAYYYYYYYY above the trees, like hundreds of feet, and I fall, this helmet is going to do nothing. It was kind of comical actually. I wanted to stash one for our bikes. But I didn't. So, we watch the first people go and they are gone. Out of sight, gone. Into the jungle. Not into but over the jungle. Hannah started to get scared and I did too. I couldn't let her know that though. I'm acting all non-chelant, like I've done this a million times, and my knees were shaking and my adrenaline kicks in and I haven't even gone yet and neither have my kids. Jordan was the first of our family to step up to the platform and clip, clip. She was good to go and boom! She was gone. The feeling that I had was so unreal I can't even explain it. To see your kid wizzing down this cable, clipped in, sitting in a harness, ziplining, is incredible. They clip us all onto a cable as we are standing on these platforms because the platforms are so high off the ground if you fell, you'd be done. Hannah is on the platform now and she is silent. I could tell she was super scared but it was to late to back down and she got clipped onto the main cable. Hasta la Vista Baby. She was gone. OMG! OMG! was all I could say. I thought for one moment, bad parent? good parent? Good parent, I decided. Now it's my turn and Tavo can tell I am flored. BIG TIME. Clip, Clip. I'm ready and I jump off the platform and I actually remembered to look around as I'm zipping down this flipping cable above the jungle. It was beautiful to say the least. We did this on 11 cables. Granted, some of those cables were short but still super fun and I have never experienced anything so amazing. Who the heck came up with this sport???? Is it even considered a sport??? It's not for the faint of heart and I can see how people would not want to go. We were all for it and we'd do it over and over again. Thanks to Tavo, Abel, and Jose for making it so much fun. Those guys were funny, fun, energetic, and professional. I will recommend it in the future. We were driven back to our casita by Tavo, again, and it was well worth the $55 bucks/person including transportation, which, in our case, was huge. A taxi would have cost us at least $50 to get there one way. We made lunch, drank an ice cold beer and relaxed. It was HOT and HUMID today. Not like it isn't everyday but it seemed more so today. We couldn't get off the hammocks and sat there talking about the canopy tour and relaxing. Jack and I took off to look at the waves. It was nice, just the two of us. We got a beer at Lola's and sat on the beach and enjoyed. We rode back and got to the casita and asked the girls if they wanted to go to the Mauna Loa for a pizza. It is the 4th of July after all and Jack is in a festive mood. Jordan opted to stay back while Jack, Hannah and I rode our bikes down there. We swam in the pool while they were making our pizza. Pizza was ready after awhile and we went up to the bar to eat it and it was delicious. We paid and rode home just as it was almost to dark. We got home and Jordan was watching a movie and we were all happy. I have to say this is the first 4th of July I can remember where I am in bed before midnight in a long time. It feels great. Today was Pura Vida. Time for bed.