SV Panta Rhei Retirement Trip

There is no describing the first launch on a zip line. That is how we spent our last day in the canyon. It took about 3 hours to do the 7 zip lines that took us to the "bottom" of the canyon (which was only about half way down the canyon). We rode a tram back to the top. Then we caught the train to Las Moches where we are this morning.

The gear and the management of the activity were first class...that was comforting. The process starts with signing permission slips to kill each of us...just like in the US. Then we put on harnesses and tighten them way too tight (like cinching up horses with saddles). There is a pulley that attaches to the cable that is made of aluminum. Is it lubricated well enough? The wheels are about 4 inches in diameter and there are two of them. There is a "practice" zip line at the start of the course where the lead "zipper" tells us what can go wrong. I listen real closely and sure enough I experienced everything he told me could happen. There is no "practice" though. You listen to his very short lecture and then he asks who wants to go first? The first line is about 800 meters long. When you launch you accelerate and the pulleys start to scream and vibrate. Vibrate? Hey, are these things OK? Too late to ask. We are zipping 70-100km/hr and hanging suspended over a mountain canyon. If you brake (with your hand?) you will not make it up the other side to the platform. Sidewinds? They rotate you and are very hard to correct for. Drop your legs? The sidewind sensitivity increases and you slow down. That's bad. Karen came up short on the platform. Then she began to roll backwards toward the center of the zip line. Time to brake! Then turn around. Then hand over hand pull yourself to the platform. If you are too slow, one of the helpers clips on and zips down to you to hook his legs around you and helps you hand over hand (uphill) to the platform. They are young and agile and strong...a good thing. I got my wife back.

These cables are really long and you go really fast. The sound of the pulleys is alarming at first. I kept thinking of how if I moved my thumb about a cm it might touch the pulley and my thumb and hand and maybe arm would disappear. Later, I looked more closely at the mechanism and saw that it had protection against just that sort of thing. But I got to finish the first zip line before I got to look again at exactly how this was set up! Each line is about a minute long which is plenty of time to think about how fast things could go really wrong.

In between the zip lines they had suspension bridges. These bridges really moved when you walked on them! They were long and the boards at the bottom had big gaps in them. We gained a new appreciation for Indiana Jones.

This was really fun. It gave us views you couldn't get any other way and there was lots of fresh air. Everyone should do this.