The Panamese zipline

The canopy tour costs $40 per person. But my dad thought the Panamanian woman (for some reason before the trip I was sure that they were Panamese) had quoted him four dollars each and he handed her a $20 bill for four people. Funny that somehow the language barrier translates into a seemingly lack of intelligence. The woman stared blankly at us, we stare blankly back, all of us confused and searching our minds for the one word that will make it all click.

Our driver had deftly maneuvered us off the main road, down an extremely hazardous back road and toward the canopy tour parking lot with tremendous calmness. He seemed up for an adventure as he navigated monstrous unguarded dropoffs and rickety bridges with his lips curled up in a slight grin. Though when the car starts slipping as we creep down an extraordinarily steep hill to the canopy tour office, he puts it in park and we get out, leaving it perched haphazardly on the incline, and walk the rest of the way.

It’s hot in the rainforest and the air hangs heavy and thick. It’s the first day we’ve been in Panama that it hasn’t rained and it is the second time I’ve traveled with my dad, Cynthia, Adam and Julianna, my father’s girlfriend and her two children.

Over the dinner the night before, we collectively wonder (as rain gushes down all around us) if there is a rainforest nearby because it rains a lot or if it rains a lot because there is a rainforest nearby.

We are told that it is technically the end of the rainy season, though I am certain I’ve never seen more rain in my life. It pours off every surface and down the stairs like a waterfall.

I slipped on the stairs directly after breakfast the first day and possibly broke my toe (how do you know if it’s broken?) and when I arrived back in my room, soaking wet after a hike to the village on the other side of the mountain and a jog back in the rain, I courageously removed my sock to see that my toe had turned a terrible shade of blue and purple.

With my sneaker laces tied tight, I can only feel a twinge of pain three days later as the $20 bill is handed back to my dad and the correct amount ($160) is finally passed to the woman.

We are each fitted with a tight canvas belt and straps around our thighs that attaches to a heavy metal zipline that hangs heavily off of the belt?for now. We are given a pair of thick leather gloves and we climb to a platform high above where a lone cable stretches a few hundred feet away to another platform.

Two guides go with us?neither one speaks much English. There are nods all around and suddenly the first hops up, attaches his zipline to the cable and swings out into the rainforest canopy. He doesn’t hold on and takes the trip upside down, his body swinging carelessly in the wind. He smiles mischievously back at us from the second platform.

“Do not imitate him,” the second guide says to me. I shake my head adamantly; you couldn’t pay me to do that.

The correct way to do it is scary enough: your legs crossed feet first, your right gloved hand holding the wire as a brake, and your left hand holding the zipline attaching your belt to the cable.

It was like flying out over the treetops. My legs dangling free, my muscles tensed and nothing holding me up besides that flimsy canvas belt. The straps dig into my thighs and I slowly release my grip on my brake hand and feel the wind pick up on my face.

I don’t make it all the way across, but instead stop 25 feet from the platform. The guide explains that I must turn my body toward the first platform and pull myself backward hand over hand up toward the second platform. I try not to think much about what I am doing, hanging from my belt, 300 feet up in the air, and concentrate on the task at hand.

When I finally feel his hand on my shoulders pull me up to my feet and unclip me from the cable, I flash him a grin and breathe the universal sigh of relief.

There were 10 platforms in total and by the fourth one I no longer had to pull myself up.

- Zac Stuart-Pontier