Zippy Longstocking...
23 February 2009 | Loterrie Farm, St. Martin, FWI
Connor MacKenzie
We drove along dirt roads, through slums, in a car that can barely make it up a hill. Now, the car isn't that bad, but when driving the almost vertical hill to get to the Westin Resort and Spa you could walk faster. Anyway, we traveled with all 8 of us in a Suzuki van in the general direction of Pic Paridis, the highest point on St. Martin/ St. Maarten. Loterie Farm is 150 acres of nature preserve and you would think it could be spotted a mile away. Wrong. You turn left at a run down gas station in the middle of nowhere, right at barely legible sign advertising Loterie Farm, park in a grass parking lot and you're there. Painted in earthy tones, the buildings are actually nice compared to the places we passed on the way. We stood in the shade of an old parachute and signed the necessary waivers that need to be signed in order to go zip trekking. Waivers always bugged me, you should really rethink what you are doing when you have to sign a form saying if you die, don't point a finger at us. Moving along, we were fitted with harnesses by a guide who was higher than a kite, if you catch my drift. It is always reassuring that the man with our lives in his hands wasn't in a proper state of mind. However, the up side was that he had some great lines like, "What's the most important rule? Don't die" or when we were petting a cat was "Cat will land on its feet, you won't". Now, don't quotes like that give you confidence to dangle from a wire 60 feet in the air? We learned the ground rules and climbed up to first tight rope. Some people are inching across the wire and some people are chickening out before they start while Boss Man, our guide is walking backwards with a coke can in one hand. We are indeed attached to something, a metal wire, about the equivalent to our shrouds, but falling is still nerve racking while you free fall until you reach the end of line attached to your harness and hurts a lot. Imagine doing the "Jackass" stunt when they jump from a tree while their underwear is still attached, wedgie times a lot! Kim, Jenny and Shae raced through the curse to the extent of being asked to stop and wait for other people to catch up. I slowly went through for the sole purpose of watching Bruce and Mom make their way through. There were logs dangling from ropes to be used as stepping-stones, tight ropes, zip lines and others. The zip lines were the best, though, you are hooked onto a slanted wire by some pulleys and you slide down the wire at speeds that exceed those of our big rent-a-car. On your and is a well used gardening glove that serves as a brake, when you squeeze the wire you slow to a stop. Squeeze to early and you are stuck in the middle of the wire, squeeze to late and you hit a tree trunk with the momentum of a tire rolling down a hill like the one by the Westin. They have waivers for a reason! Four of the final five elements were zips, only they were very long. Our guide allowed Steph, who didn't do the course, to do the final four and everyone to do them with her. As Eleanor Roosevelt said, do one thing every day that scares you