Panama Day 4: Zipline in El Valle

Let me start by saying that Dan and I are cowards - we don't like roller coasters and during one ferris wheel ride at Disneyland California Adventure this summer we spent a lot of time gripping the cage and waiting for it to be over. Afterward, Dan assured me that the C130 ride to Baghdad was less terrifying than that ferris wheel.

So it took all of our courage to decide that "yes, we should try a zip line tour" and then it took even more courage to actually lift our feet off of the ground which started the ride.


You are in a harness that is attached to a pulley that rides along the metal wire line. One of your hands holds on to the rope going to the pulley and your other hand which is more heavily gloved works as a brake slowing you down.



This zip line tour was marketed as an eco-tourism canopy tour - one's chance to be at bird's eye level up in the canopy - it was great but this was not about bird-watching. The trip started with a twenty minute hike up a really pretty trail while wearing our zip line gear. We then took four rides across valleys from mountain to mountain. The third ride was across a waterfall. It's much steeper, so a guide controls your speed from above.


These photographs and the videos below do not show you how high you really are. Dan commented afterwards that we did not have helmets - but it wasn't a fall you'd likely survive.


It really was fun - and a little scary - okay a lot scary the first time and increasingly fun and less scary the other times. We asked our guides how to say "I am afraid" in Spanish. They said one should say "I have fear". In Duffy's video, I try to ask her, "Do you have fear?". Off camera, the guide is laughing. I later learned why. When I repeated the phrase for our driver, he pointed out that I was mispronouncing "fear" so it sounded like I was asking, "Do you have [excrement]?"

Dan on the waterfall zip line

Duffy on the last zip line