On the one hand, all I need to do is let myself go. On the other hand, I’m 900 feet over the forest floor.
“Ready?” the tour guide asks.
I hesitate. “Maybe?” I say.
The guide sighs. He watches tourists go zip lining in Toro Verde Adventure Park all day, so he doesn’t think flying over trees while you’re suspended from a cable is a big deal.
“Remember that you need to lean back to make yourself go faster, otherwise you’ll get stuck,” he says.
Besides my harness unhooking itself from the cable mid-flight, this is my biggest fear. If you don’t get up enough momentum, you’ll stop partway across the cable and have to pull yourself across to the other side, hand-over-hand.
I tug at the leg straps on my harness. They keep sliding down and it’s making me nervous. “Can you tighten these?” I ask. We’ve been warned not to tamper with our equipment ourselves.
The guide sighs again. “They’re fine,” he says, but he unhooks me from the cable and tightens my straps. My husband and brother-in-law are waiting behind me along with an entire American family. Like me, the Americans are pale, sweaty and unevenly sunburned – ill-suited for the Puerto Rican climate.
The guide hooks me up again and I know there is no turning back. He instructs me to lift my legs off the wooden block that I’m standing on, and suddenly I’m hanging with my stomach facing up to the sky, the guide’s hands holding me in place. My own hands, which are protected by yellow gloves that are damp with sweat, grip the hook that is attaching me to the cable.
“Ready?” the guide asks again. Before I can answer, he lets go and so do I.
The wind rushes in my face and roars in my ears, drowning out everything else. The trees below pass by in a green blur. I feel like I’m falling. Or flying. Maybe a little bit of both. I’m not in control of anything, and it feels wonderful.
And then I start to slow down.
The trees come into focus. I try leaning back to pick up speed, but it’s no use. Soon I have stopped completely, and I’m still at least 100 feet from the next platform.
I take a deep breath. Without the roaring of the wind in my ears, the forest starts to come to life. I hear tropical birds chirping over each other, having a conversation where no one is really listening. Looking down, I notice a river running below me that snakes through a break in the trees.
This could be worse, I think.
The guide on the platform is motioning for me to move. I turn myself around and begin pulling myself backwards. I’m going slowly, but it’s working. There is something deeply satisfying about
moving myself across this vast space with one hand over the other, little by little. I’m convinced that I’ll be able to get myself to the other side – until I feel a weight pulling on the cable.
I turn my head and see that the guide has lost his patience and is coming out to rescue me. I want to tell him to turn back, that I can get there by myself, but he has already attached his harness to the cable and is gliding towards me. There are other tourists waiting and I’m holding them up.
He gets to me and hooks his harness to mine without a word. “Thank you,” I say, because I know I should be grateful. He leans back without responding and starts pulling us both in. I have no choice but to go along with him.
It isn’t long before we reach the platform. He unhooks me from the cable and I watch as my brother-in-law take his turn on the zip line. He sails towards me, the cable humming as he picks up speed, until he too slows down. And stops.
“Hay otra!” someone shouts through the guide’s walkie-talkie. There’s another one. The guide hooks himself back up to the cable and heads out over the forest again. Meanwhile, my brother-in-law is hurriedly trying to pull himself back in. Like me, he still wants to believe that he’s in charge of his own adventure.
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