Canopy: Originally posted 3/23/05

As you all know, I took a cruise to Mexico last month. (Please read the first entry here.) Well of course with any cruise there are bound to be some off-ship excursions. I mean I suppose you can stay on the ship the entire week, but why deprive yourself of some other worldly culture? Look at it this way, it would be like going to an amusement park and riding the bumper cars all day. Sure they're fun, but I want to ride the rollercoaster as well. Excursions come in all shapes and sizes. Some are relaxing, some downright exhausting. There's bus tours, nature walks, museum tours, whale watching (Which I find to be like nature's version of gambling. Sometimes you hit blackjack, but most of the time it always ends up snake eyes.), sailing, waverunners, parasailing, snorkeling, scuba diving, vineyard tours...well you get the idea. Some people choose to arrive in port before making their decision, which is not a well thought out plan. You get all excited and BLAM!, it's already entirely booked, and has been for months. Remember this kiddies: Always book your excursions at the same time you book the actual cruise. You'll thank me for it later. Or you can thank me now, I'm easy.

Which brings us all to the point of me typing this out at 12:00 am. What did I pick? What was my excursion de jour? What group/and or company got my hard earned pesos? My wife and I, no wait that's not right. My wife picked this one. She was the catalyst for my body feeling the effects of this adventure for weeks afterwards. She is the reason I had to soak my cartoonesque-throbbing joints and muscles in the hot tub on the ship for two hours. This was not a bad thing per se, I did have a drink with me the whole time in the hot tub. So I give her full credit. But without her jackhammering the idea into my granite like grey matter, I wouldn't have this story to tell now would I? We know we did not want to experience the countryside on a bus, or walking around a small quaint village as the locals jumped out at us like Latin ninjas peddling their trinkets (which some of them were really cool). We're not star crossed lovers in a sappy TV movie of the week starring Lindsay Wagner or Melissa Gilbert, so the romantic sailboat ride at sunset was not an option. We've done the snorkel thing, so that too was out. So we had three choices left. Swimming with the dolphins (I feel bad for the little Flippers having to deal with knuckle dragging bipeds pawing at them all day), A pirate ship to a private beach (that one we almost picked, the drinks were free on that trip) or the Canopy Adventure.

Of course we chose the latter of the three. It would be a little pointless for me to be writing about that, if in reality; I tried to spot Orca from a boat all day don't cha think? Let me say this: It was the coolest thing I've ever done to this day, with the exception of me pushing Pete Rose's snot-nosed punk-ass son (and almost punching him) while I was at baseball camp. That is another story I am not allowed to comment on as advised by my attorney. Although I still would have been tried as a minor. The journey began with an hour long ride in an open Mercedes off road vehicle known as a Unimog (you know, the kind you see on the Discovery channel) to the jungle of Puerto Vallarta. I think the drive itself made me more nervous. Once we arrived at our destination, we were suited up with about 30 pounds of gears, winches, pulleys, safety lines and the dorkiest helmet you have ever seen. It reminded me of the one Mike Myers wore when he played his retarded SNL character Phillip. After a brief lesson up to the first platform we went.

We were not to touch any cables at any time, the guides were to do all of that. We were always tethered with a safety line though. One by one each member of our party took the first zip line down to the next platform. Each zip became increasingly longer than the previous one. Some up to about a football field in length. We were also told our hand is our brake. Push down and you slow down. If you squeeze the cable then you have problems. Which of course is your first instinct when all around you trees are rushing by at a blistering pace. Look at the picture above as I demonstrate the proper technique. (beginner's luck) What you cannont see from that picture is the smoke wisping off of my leather glove due to massive amounts of friction. But...it is always better to brake too soon than too late. If you brake too late or God forbid not at all, then these are a few things you may see coming towards you faster than Robert Blake can say "Whew!"

After a few zips it occurs to me I am very high up in the treetops. After my heart stopped racing from the adreniline I just mainlined I ask one of the guides (who were all very cool) how high we were. Eighty feet was the response. It doesn't seem like much but when all you have holding you up there is a small two inch wide strip of material attached to a cable it becomes quite clear that you are playing a game of twister with Death. Best two out of three of course.

With a group of fifteen people ranging in ages from twenty-five to sixty-five, some people became very eco-friendly while standing on a platform ten stories from the forest floor. Zip runs with names like Mamacita, Big Papa, The Blender and Macho Man all lived up to their glory. If flying through the canopy at 25 miles an hour wasn't enough, there were the traverse bridges to attend to. About a foot wide and wobblier than grandma's Jello mold, these 'breaks' in the action provided a perfect opportunity for the guides to jump up and down as you were walking across. They thought it was funny. I told them I would have thought so too, but my heart was already doing the same thing.

By the fifth zip line images of Solid Snake, Rambo and to a lesser extent Bionic Commando start to enter my head. Shouting "Who's your Daddy?" was a prerequisite while flying down the Mamacita. I myself opted for the less popular but much more effective "I'm your Daddy!" as the birds, startled from my exuberance, fluttered from the branches to a safer less egotistical location in the forest. Zips, bridges, slamming into trees, gloves catching fire, bad jokes about mexican beer and a seventy-eight foot repel down to the safety of mother earth finally came to an end. I even saw some nature along the way. So all in all another experience that I can store in my memory filed under the "I can't believe I just did that" folder. There's an old saying that goes, 'You can't see the forest for the trees'. But you sure as hell can if you're standing on top of them.