Man overboard!

My younger son fell out of his tube after going over the large rapids shown in yesterday's photo.  This was not a problem, as he could simply pull himself back up and into the tube using its straps and handles.  

We were already wet from the tubing, so it did not make a difference that Stuart went in the drink with his swimming suit on.  Hacienda Guachipelin supplied us life preservers and helmets, so no harm can come from this little episode.

Fortunately, I had my waterproof camera to record this embarrassing moment of Stuart's.  In the second photo, you can see Stuart give the thumbs up sign to signify all is well.  

Please excuse the quality of these photos, as the camera obviously had water on the lens, and I took the second photo backwards and over my shoulder, so the framing of the shot is off.  Behind Stuart in the second photo is my older son, who is floating down backwards at that moment, and one of the attendants in a blue helmet is visible behind him.

This concludes my series from the tubing portion of our Hacienda Guachipelin Adventure Tour day.

River rapids and attendants

This odd photo shows large and swift rapids that we did indeed go down in our rafts. One of the attendants is standing right on the edge of the drop off in order to grab our tubes as we floated by and to stabilize us to prevent our tubes from tipping over. One of the other attendants is approaching the rapids.

The attendants were amazing. They were sort of like caddies who help golfers at a nice country club. They would point our tubes us in the right direction so we would float down the best part of the river, as there was very little we could do to steer the tubes. In calm stretches of the river, they even kicked and paddled and helped push us along.

They were present to assist if anyone fell out of their tube or tipped over in the rapids. The attendant who was standing on the edge of the rapids in the top photo reached out and grabbed my tube as I was about to plunge down the rapids and he stabilized my tube in the right position so I would not flip over, which I would have done had he not been there to help.

The bottom photo posted today was the scene of a little, harmless mishap by my younger son, which I will show tomorrow.

River tubing

Here are some more views of our afternoon float trip.  As these and the previous photo show, the only practical way to go down this river is by floating on a tube, unless you are an expert in a kayak, which we and most tourists are not, of course.  

In the background of the top photo you can see one of the guides.  Unlike us, he is going down the river on his stomach rather than sitting down in the inner tube as we were.  That allows him to steer and, with his hands free, to help us.  The guides kept us pointed in the right direction so that we would not get hung up on any rocks.
In the second photo you see my older son going down one of the rapids.  In both of these photos, I had spun in my tube so I was floating down backwards, which explains why I was able to take a photo looking back up the river.

I selected these photos to try to give an idea of how swift the river is.  From a distance the rapids may not look very big, but while riding in an inner tube going over them, it was quite fun and thrilling.  Tomorrow's photos will be even more extreme.

Comment about the situation in Iran:   Today, June 28, many Daily Photo bloggers are commenting about the situation in Iran.  I would like to join in expressing the wishes of people all over the world that human rights will be respected for all people, including those who observe their right of assembly, without being targeted or repressed by their governments.  International news media and observers of free elections are essential in many areas of the world.  

Websites, including the Daily Photo websites, are an important tool to promote understanding and fellowship among people of different nations.  The expression of views by people on the internet and in the streets of Tehran should be respected and encouraged, not repressed.    One of the City Daily Photo bloggers in Iran, we understand, has been taken in to custody.  His photos of the situation in Iran have been remarkable, and the world joins in expressing its hopes and prayers for his safety.

Democracy and human rights are very important to the people of Costa Rica.  Costa RIca is a beacon of democracy in Central America, a region that has  been troubled and challenged in the past.  Costa Rica abolished its military in 1949 and redirected its military budget to spend the money on health care and education.  It has been a stable democracy ever since, even though many of its neighbors have had military coups and takeovers.  

Click here to view thumbnails for all participants"> among the Daily Photo Bloggers who are commenting upon the situation in Iran.

Tubing down the rapids

Our tubing trip down the Rio Negro River was a thrill-packed adventure, as I hope you can appreciate somewhat by today's photos and the photos from the last two days.  

The river flowed quickly, with twists, turns, and drops in elevation, as you can see in the photos today and during the past few days.  

In the second photo today, a blue helmet on the head of a fellow floater is barely visible in the left side of the photo, which shows turbulence of the river.   

I took these photos and the ones I posted during the last few days while floating down the river on a tube, using a waterproof camera.  Please excuse and tolerate the quality of the photos, as I was obviously moving and bouncing at the time, and water was on the lens.

Tubing on the Rio Negro

Our next activity was tubing.  There were 6 of us tubing, with 3 attendants to guide and help us.  There was also an attendant who took any personal belongings from the horseback ride, such as extra clothes, and drove them to the end of the float trip so people could change into dry clothes at the end of the float.

As you can see in the 2 photos today and the during the past 2 days, this was not a "lazy river" float.  There were lots of rapids during the trip, which was 5 km (3 miles) long and took about an hour.  Some of the rapids were rated as Class III rapids.

The tubes had handles to hold on to, and a seat strapped in the middle to sit on and keep people from sliding down inside the inner tube.

Several people yesterday left comments guessing that the activity I would show today would be rafting.  Those were good guesses, but I think that this river would be too narrow and have too many twists and turns for rafts.

Rio Negro river

This is a closer view of the Rio Negro.  Two days ago I mentioned that after our horseback ride we had another activity, but I have not yet mentioned what that activity is.  The photos yesterday and today should give you a good hint. 

If you came across a river like this, what would you like to do?  Tomorrow I will show you what we did next in our day at Hacienda Guachipelin.

Rio Negro river

At the end of the horseback ride, we found ourselves on the banks of the Rio Negro river.  The forest was lush.  Hacienda Guachipelin is located on the slopes of Rincon de la Vieja volcano, and there are many rivers that run down the slopes of the volcano.  The elevation gain up the slopes of the volcano causes a transition from the Pacific coastal dry forest to the cloud forest at higher elevations.

Horseback ride at Hacienda Guachipelin

After lunch, we went to the stables and did a horseback ride through the forest.  The horses were excellent trail horses.  The route was downhill, which made it easier for them.  The horses broke into a mild trot a few times.

There were six riders and three cowboys to escort us.  We were given helmets to wear, both for the horseback ride and for our next activity.

What is the next activity?  Stay tuned.

Excuse me for this shout-out, but I would like to use this occasion to wish happy birthday today to my brother.  He is a clinical psychologist who has helped people his entire professional life.   He and his wife (a social worker) work for the Veterans Administration in Minnesota, primarily evaluating and helping veterans who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan.  He has a delightful and talented family.  Each of his two children has travelled to Costa Rica twice.

Cattle at Hacienda Guachipelin

While we were having lunch, across the road we saw this cow come walking along.  He was followed by a herd of cows and some Costa Rican cowboys, shown in the second photo.

Hacienda Guachipelin is a working cattle ranch in addition to being a eco-lodge, restaurant, and adventure park.  It is 1,600 hectares, or nearly 4,000 acres.  About 1/3rd of the land is used for pastures.  About 20% of the land is being reforested with environmentally threatened trees.  The remainder is being preserved as tropical forests with eco-tourism activities such as hikes to waterfalls.

The Guanacaste region of northwest Costa Rica has a different ecology than the rest of the country.  The weather is sunny and dry for much of the year.  There are not banana plantations.   Instead of the small family farms of coffee that are common in the moist central highlands and valleys, Guanacaste has a tradition of cattle ranches and cowboys.   

Tomorrow, I will show photos of our first activity after lunch.  After watching these cowboys, we decided it was time to saddle up.

Lunch at Hacienda Guachipelin

After our exhilarating zip line adventure, we were ready for lunch.  Would this be a fast food lunch?  No, we were ready to sit and relax for a bit to allow our adrenaline to subside to human levels.  

I did not expect, however, that we would find that there was a white table cloth lunch set up at a table that was reserved with my name on it.  The food was a buffet of traditional Costa Rican food, which offered salad and a choice of chicken or other entrees, with rice and beans, and deserts that included local pineapples and other refreshing fresh fruit. 

Tomorrow I will show you part of the view from our lunch table.

Zip lining crew

This photo memorializes that my two sons and I safely and happily completed the zip line phase of our Hacienda Guachipelin Adventure Tour, with the four attendants who assisted us and the three young women in our group.  

With the photos I have shown during the past week or so of our zip lining, rappelling, Tarzan swinging, rock climbing, being perched on the side of the slot canyon cliff, more zip lining, and upside down zip lining, it is perhaps easy to overlook that we arrived at Hacienda Guachipelin at 10:00 a.m. and everything I have shown you thus far occurred before lunch.  

Sharon of Phoenix Daily Photo left a comment a few days ago that she surmised that we would be tired after all this activity, but there is much more to come. 

Zip lining, upside down

As promised yesterday, here are two photos of people going down the zip lines upside down.  Like most of the other lengths of zip lines at hacienda Guachipelin, this final length of the zip lines crosses the slot canyon yet again.  

The second photo shows that it is not possible to control the direction of your body as you are hanging upside down on the zip lines.  She had the added thrill of traveling through the air, fast, upside down, and backwards, while looking down at the rushing river in the bottom of the slot canyon.  

You can see three of the attendants and the woman's two friends on the destination platform on the other end of the zip line.  

 

As I mentioned yesterday, my younger son, Stuart, did this zip line upside down, but I did not.  Was it foremost on my mind wondering what I would do with my camera that was dangling around my neck if my nearly 60 year old bones were hanging upside down?  Sure, that was it.

Zip lines upside down

I previously showed the young women who were in our zip lining group going down the zip lines with no hands, one of them rappelled down the canyon upside down, and I described how my wife went down the zip lines in a horizontal "Super-Chica" position.  For the last zip line in our Adventure Tour at Hacienda Guachipelin, the guide asked is if we wanted to zip line upside down.  The three women who were in our group eagerly accepted the challenge, as did my younger son, Stuart, but not I.

Here is a photo of the guide positioning one of the women upside down.  I am sure that your attention was drawn first to the pulley mechanism that is shown in this photo.  You will note that there are riders are attached to the zip lines in two ways.  In addition to the hook hanging from the pulley, there is a safety hook attached around the cable behind the pulley at all times.   The attendants were very careful to make sure that the safety cable was attached whenever we were hooked or unhooked to the pulley.

The three women from New York who were in the same group with us said it would be OK for me to take their photos and post them on this website, but I used my discretion to post a photo that was made somewhat more modest due to the location of the guide's elbow and forearm.

My younger son, Stuart, also did the last zip line upside down.  I think he figured that it would be too much of an insult to his manhood if the women were the only ones to do the trip upside down.  I decided that I am too old for such thrill-seeking, and the regular zip lining position is plenty adventurous for me.  (And of course I had my camera to think about and protect.)

What does it look like to zip across the canyon while suspended upside down?  By now in this series of photos you have probably anticipated my teaser:  the answer will be shown tomorrow.

Zip-lining down the canyon

This is my older son as he set off on the zip lines heading to the second to the last platform.  You can see the platform in the distance.  It has been built into the canyon wall, just below the top of the cliff.  

This photo also shows a perspective of the distance and elevation drop from one platform to the next.  Visible in the bottom of the photo is the Rio Blanco river that carved the slot canyon through which we were zip-lining, rappelling, Tarzan-swinging, and rock climbing, 

 

In this photo you can see my son's right arm positioned on the cable, ready to pull down if he needs to brake.  The friction of the leather glove pulling down on the cable provides the braking.   

You may recall that near the beginning of this photo tour I showed a picture of one of the women who took the tour with us traveling down the zip lines with no hands.  Tomorrow and the following day I will show you something even more extreme.  Fasten your seat belts.

Perched on the edge of a cliff

The next stop on the zip line tour found us walking along the edge of the cliff of the canyon.  Here you see my younger son, Stuart, with one of the guides, on a narrow ledge, with the river down below.  Don't worry, there is still a safety cable that would hold him if he fell.

From this perch on the side of the cliff, each of us swung across the canyon to reach the other side using another Tarzan swing.

Tomorrow I will show you what happened next.

Zip line platform suspended over canyon

This is a photo of the platform at the end of the zip line shown in yesterday's photo.  What is remarkable about it is that the platform on which to land is suspended in mid air over the canyon, attached only by cables to the two canyon walls.  

If you are worried what might happen if a rider approaches this platform at too high a speed, there is no need to worry.  When riding the zip lines, it is possible to slow down by applying the brakes.  The brakes consist of thick leather gloves on which you can pull down on the cable from which your pulley and cable are hanging.  It is critical, of course, to keep your hand behind the pulley so your pulley does not run over  your hand.

At the Hacienda Guachipelin zip line tour, the platforms have blocks on the wires that catch the incoming riders so it is possible to approach the platforms at a higher speed without braking, and the blocks will stop you automatically.

The automatic brakes are a benefit because it is a mistake on the zip lines to brake to the extent that you stop before reaching the platform.  If you stop too soon, you will have to spin around and reach up to the cable with each and and pull yourself along the wire to the platform.

This photo shows one of my sons as he is about to leave the platform suspended over the canyon and head to the next stop, which I will show tomorrow. 

Rock climbing and zip lines

The top photo shows me climbing out of the canyon on the rock climbing wall, while my two sons waited below for their turn.  My prior experience with rock climbing was limited to a couple of trips to an indoor rock climbing wall with my sons about 15 years ago.  This canyon is obviously much taller than an indoor rock climbing wall.   

The top of the rock climb out of the canyon is not the end of the zip line adventure.  We were only about half done.  There were more zip lines to come, criss-crossing  and traversing the canyon.  

The second photo shows my older son taking a zip line from the top of the rock climb towards the next platform, while my younger son is climbing out of the canyon in the background.

Tomorrow I will show you the destination of the zip line shown in this photo.  It is unique.  

Rock climbing

While it was fast and effortless to rappel down into the canyon, we climbed out.  

There were foothold and handholds bolted into the cliff to make it possible to climb out.  We wore our harnesses, and we were attached to cables.  The guides could catch us if we fell, and they could also give a little assist on the climb by use of the cables and pulleys.  

Once we reached the top, do you think that we were done?   Think again.  Then check the photos tomorrow and the days that follow.

News Item:  Costa Rica recently won the World Tourism Organization's 2009 Ulysses Award at the "Innovation in Tourism Education" conference in Madrid, Spain.  Several schools near Tamarindo have implemented the "School Tourism Culture Awareness: Costa Rica Adventure" program developed by the Costa Rican Tourism Institute.  The program teaches elementary school children the importance of sustainable tourism through fun interactive exercises and games.

For a small country like Costa Rica, where tourism is the number one industry, teaching children at a young age the benefits of eco-tourism is important both for future economic development.  Developing special programs for elementary school children has the added benefit of educating their parents when they ask their children "What did you learn in school today?"  

Tarzan swing

We have already seen how to cross the canyon the top on zip lines, and we have seen how to go from the top of the canyon by rappelling down.

Now, we face the challenge of how to get from one side of the canyon to the other from deep inside the canyon.

The answer: swinging across like Tarzan.

The top photo is my older son swinging across, with my younger son filming him. The bottom photo shows one of the young women who took the trip with us swinging across. I apologize for the lack of focus, but it was a low light situation deep in the canyon, and of course she was moving fast.

The next question we face is how to get from the bottom of the canyon to the top. I will show you tomorrow.

Rappelling upside down

I said yesterday that I would show you another way to rappel down to the bottom of the canyon. Here it is: upside down!!

The guides attached the clip and the cable to her harness, and instead of having this young woman simply hold on to the cable in a sitting position while being dropped down the canyon, the guides, with her consent, grabbed her feet and wrapped her feet around the cable so that she would be upside down.

They then dropped her, head first, down towards the river at the bottom of the canyon. Talk about a thrill!

The second photo below shows that this young woman did arrive safely at the bottom.

How did I go down, you might wonder? Right side up. It is OK if you call me a sissy, but I will defend my manhood by declaring that I had an excuse, of course. I had my camera with me, and I would not want to risk damaging my camera, right? If I lost or damaged my camera, I would not have been able to take the photos of the next several activities that I will share with you in the days ahead.

Rappelling down the canyon

Yesterday, I showed the canyon traversed by the zip lines at Hacienda Guachipelin and posed the the question of how to get to the bottom of the canyon. Comments from readers guessed a Tarzan swing, or bungee jumping, and suggested that we were perhaps mentally ill. :-)

Here is the answer: rappelling! The guides who accompany guests on the trip unhooked the two cables, one at a time, from the zip lines to another cable mechanism that allowed them to drop us straight down to a platform over the river at the base of the canyon.

I should mention that the zip line adventure uses a double cable system so that visitors are attached to a cable at all times. When it is time to switch from one cable to another, the first cable is detached and then reattached before the second cable is detached and reattached. The straps, cables and hooks all appear to be in good condition. But it can still be scary.

A couple of days ago I showed you that there is more than one way to ride down the zip lines, including the regular way, or with no hands, or "super-chica" style. Guess what? There is more than one way to go down repelling. What is the other way? The answer will be shown in two photos tomorrow.

Canyon and river in zip line tour

OK. Here is a predicament for you. You have been zip lining through the forest and across a canyon as part of the Hacienda Guachipelin Adventure Tour. Now, the next part of the tour continues from the base of this canyon that you have been zip lining across.

Question: How do you get to the base of the canyon to continue with the next stages of the tour?

The answer will be shown tomorrow.

By the way, I should take this opportunity to extend congratulations to the Costa Rican World Cup Football (Soccer) Team. Last week Costa Rica beat the USA and Costa Rica now sits on top of its bracket in the World Cup qualifying tournament.

The games are being telecast on ESPN. Although I am an American, I found myself rooting for Costa Rica. Football/soccer and the World Cup is so much more important to Costa Rica and it is so small compared to the USA, with only 4 million people and an area the size of West Virginia. Ticos celebrate the achievements of their country and it would be a well deserved source of national pride for their team to compete in South Africa one year from now.

Zip lining with no hands

Yesterday I showed a photo of my son going down the zip lines while taking a video. Here is someone going down the zip lines with no hands!

This means that rather than hanging on the the cable that hangs from the zip lines, she is well balanced and hanging from the clip on the harness that is strapped around her waist, over her shoulders and around her legs.

My wife, Julie, left a comment to my photo yesterday mentioning that she rode down zip lines "Super-Chica" style. That means that she was lying down face first, with her arms and legs extending out, flying through the jungle like Superman. How did she remain in that position? She explained to me (as I was not with her on that trip), that the guide was very nice and allowed her to wrap her legs around him as he rode down behind her to keep her horizontal. My wife is a 6-foot tall blonde. I am sure it was a big sacrifice for the guide to escort her down the zip lines by allowing her to wrap her legs around him.

the above photo also shows the platform that is at the other end of this link in the zip lines. That is where she will land. This rider was one of three young women from New York (one of whom was British) who were vacationing in Costa Rica and who went down the zip lines with my two sons and me.

Zip lines

When people think of Costa Rican jungle adventures, they often think first of zip lines. Here are two views of zip lining. The top photo is my older son and the bottom photo is my younger son. (Naturally, I could not play favorites and show only one.)

Usually, zip lines stretch from platforms built high up in trees in the forest or jungle. The zip lines shown here are unusual, however, because they stretch over a slot canyon carved by a river that runs down the slopes of Rincon de la Vieja volcano.

These photos were taken as part of the activities in the adventure tour at Hacienda Guachipelin. It is a large cattle ranch that has facilities and activities for visitors, including these zip lines. I will refrain from telling you about the remainder of the activities at this time, as during the next week or so I will be showing more photos of some of the activities that my sons and I did during our one-day Adventure Tour visit. If you cannot wait to see more on this website, one day at a time, here is a link to its website. I will post the link to the website again at the end of this series, so you can wait until then before you explore the official website if you don't want to spoil the surprise of the upcoming activities.

There were about a dozen different zip lines in the Hacienda Guachipelin Adventure Tour. After a safety briefing, the first several links go through the forest to get people used to the zip line experience, then this canyon appears, with zip lines stretching across the canyon.

You will notice that in the second photo, my younger son is taking a video with his camera as he is going down the zip lines. Tomorrow, I will show a photo of another way to go down the zip lines.

Our condo from the ocean

This is our condo building, located on Playa Langosta to the right of the beachfront homes that I showed yesterday. I took this photo about a week or so ago, while on a fishing boat. I like this time of year in Guanacaste, our area of Northwest Costa Rica, as the hills have turned green following the sunny and dry season from November to May.

The hill behind the condo is actually on the other side of the Langosta Estuary, which has mangrove trees and wildlife. The estuary separates the southern end of Langosta from the inland area, and makes Langosta similar to a peninsula, with only one road in and out of the area, which is residential.

During the last two weeks I have shown photos of the beach area at Playa Langosta. Tamarindo is, after all , a beach town. For the next couple of weeks, the photos will leave the beach and show an adventure inland. It will include some of the adrenalin-pumping eco-adventures for which Costa Rica is famous.

Beachfront homes and condos

This is a portion of the Playa Langosta beachfront.  The glass house that I showed in yesterday's photo is visible in the center of this photo.  The new hi-rise condos are not as close to the beachfront homes as it appears in this photo, as the telephoto lens compresses the distance between them, which is about 2 blocks.

The house on the left with the dome peeking above the trees has Moroccan architecture.  It was designed by Abraham Valenzuela, the award-winning Costa Rican architect who designed both of the buildings in which our condos are located.  Our Langosta condo is about a block to the right of this photo. 

The height of the new condo buildings that you see in this photo is controversial in the community.  The President of Costa Rica last year issued an executive order that limits the height of buildings near the ocean in our area of Northwest Costa Rica.  The condos shown in this photo could no longer be legally built today.

Of course today, there are not many new condo projects being built because the demand has dropped off due to the worldwide recession.  Most of the condos are marketed to visitors from the USA and Canada seeking vacation and retirement homes.  With so many people having lost equity in their primary residences and having lost value of their investment portfolios, they lack the extra money for second home or condo purchases.  Hopefully, the market will return to health and growth in a year or so.

Beachfront home

About a week ago I showed some photos looking up and down the beach in front of our condo on Langosta beach.  I mentioned that although it looked like the beach was undeveloped and lined only by trees, there are houses set back behind the trees on the beach.  Here is a peek through the trees at one of the beach front houses.

This house has obviously been designed to maximize the stunning views of the beach and ocean.  And why not?  I took this photo in the late afternoon, and all of that glass faces the west, afternoon sun.  That explains why most of the white window shades are closed.  

The sign on the back wall advertises to people walking along the beach that the house is for sale.  Maybe one of the readers of this blog will decide to buy it?  Information and photos of the house can be found at this link to the real estate agency. It is listed for $1.8 million USD. The house and guest houses have 10,233 sq. ft (951 sq. meters). The main house has 3 bedrooms and 3.5 baths. There are 3 guest quarters, 2 with kitchens, an infinity edge pool over looking the ocean, and an exercise room at the lower level closest to the beach. The window shades are electric and retract into the ceiling.

Maybe the house is for sale because the expense of glass cleaner went up too much.   

How much do you think a house like this would cost right on the beach in California, Hawaii, Florida, or a location near you?  My guess is that it would be about 5 times the price.

Termite mound in the tree

I like to post animal photos on this website, but not insects.  I am not a fan of insects, and my wife is really creeped out by them.  On a long walk along the beach for miles south of Playa Langosta, I walked along the edge of the forest, then ventured into the forest to follow a group of howler monkeys, then looked up and saw this massive termite nest up in a tree.   

Feet in the surf

I considered using this photo for yesterday's June 1 Daily Photo Theme Day of "feet."  I was trying to get some surfing photos last week and did not notice until I saw the photo on my computer than I had an extra pair of feet in this photo.  

This photo was taken with an extreme zoom, and I enlarged the photo on my computer, and both subjects were moving, of course.  I apologize that the combination of those three factors degraded the sharpness of the photo, but wanted to share it anyway. 

And do not worry, the surfer on the right did not hit the swimmer on the left.

Theme Day: Feet

Today's first-of-the-month worldwide Daily Photo Theme is "feet."  When I commented to my wife that I needed a foot photo for Theme Day, she suggested I take a photo of someone's feet on the beach with the sunset and ocean in the background.  When my wife was unable to join me on my current stay in Costa Rica, my son responded to her suggestion by asking where and how we would find a foot model willing to pose for the photo she suggested.

My wife replied that we should just ask someone.  My son and I both ridiculed her suggestion.  We said we would absolutely not walk up to a stranger on the beach and ask to photograph her feet.  The person would think we have a foot fetish.  I could try to explain that I was taking photos to illustrate the J.D. Salinger short story, A Perfect Day for Bananafish, but I don't think that would be ethical.  (Do we have a Daily Photo Blogger Code of Ethics?)

So, to illustrate the theme day subject of feet, I captured this photo of a  woman detaching her foot from the tether of her surfboard as she got out of the surf at Playa Langosta.  And because my wife is back in Scottsdale, I will explain to her right now:  Julie, I took this photo only because I was waiting to see if the surfer would lift her foot.  It was a sacrifice and burden so I could get my theme day photo.  

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