Our travels: Ziplining or what was I thinking?!?

I am afraid of heights. I don't even climb up our house ladder. I hug the walls of steep stairs. So why am I going to zipline through the canopy (the top layer) of a rain forest? Good question! One for which I don't have a pat answer. I guess I want my kids and grandkids to know that you can do hard things. My mantra while ziplining besides , "Please Heavenly Father get me through this!" was, "if they can do it on the Amazing Race, then I can do it-$1,000,000 here I come!"

Our guides, Andy and Jason, were absolutely wonderful. Funny, kind, and patient. The whole course is very safety conscious which helped to make this experience a great one. The best parts were ziplining through the trees and repelling down to Mother Earth. The braking and the suspension bridges were definitely not even close to the best parts! In fact, I never got the hang of the braking and was finally told, we'll stop you or the tree will-don't worry about it.

I do have to be honest at this point. The actual course is 9 ziplines and 5 suspension bridges but after the 5th zipline with 45 minutes left to go, my blood sugars went plummeting (I don't know why since we ate lunch right before but I think it probably had something to do with my anxiety level which is very evident in the upcoming photos). I thought I would be able to continue on with the snacks they provided us but my shaking, not from fear (though I was afraid) but, rather, from low blood sugars would not go away so I had to leave the course. Funny story, at this point in the course there isn't a way to leave (usually); however, one of their pinzgauers (6 wheeled vehicle we drove up in) happen to drive right up to our spot because the driver was training another guy on the ins and outs of driving one of these machines so they drove me down to the end of the course so I could meet back up with my group. The driver kept exclaiming, "we never come up here. You are really lucky." I think I was too.

So here come the pictures (they ain't pretty):

For the life of me, I could not figure out the braking so a couple of times I got stopped before making it to the platform and would have to turn 180* and climb hand over hand backwards to the platform.

Have I mentioned that I hate suspension bridges? They only got longer after this one. I missed the longest one (200 ft) which was at the end of the course. I know I should feel bad...but I don't.

Repeating over and over in my mind my mantras.

Stupid braking or lack there of.

Self-explanatory.

Jason (one of our guides) on the zipliner sacrificial altar!

End of the 3 hour (isn't there a song about "3 hour tour"?) course and the 2nd repelling part. The repelling was my favorite part! Yay for young women's where I did my first repelling.