Day 9: Rappelling down waterfalls

La Fortuna is called the adventure capital, so we thought we should do something adventurous. Through PureTrek, we would be doing 4 rappel's and a monkey drop. Our safety training showed us how to hold the ropes...left hand guides the rope and right hand at your hip controls your speed. 

The first and highest rappel was going down a 18 story waterfall. It an indescribable feeling to be turned around with just the balls of your feet touching a platform. Then you have to push yourself off and trust that the ropes the men were holding would actually keep you from plummeting to the rocks below. At first it was hard not to squeeze your right hand to completely stop your descent which caused you to just dangle!  Eventually we all figured out the right pressure to allow us to descend and propel off the wall to make it down the waterfall. By the end, we could confidently jump off and rappel our way down without stopping.

The monkey drop was a free fall drop with you holding onto a rope that the guides controlled. You would free fall down and the guides would pull on the rope to slow you down...a little bit... to dunk you in the water. 

We finished the rappelling just in time for the afternoon downpour. We ate lunch at PureTrek while we waited the rain to stop before heading to the La Fortuna Waterfalls. After walking down about 500 steps, you could swim in the blue waters under the waterfall. Unfortunately for us, the heavy rains caused the waterfall to be extremely powerful so the blue waters turned to brown water. By the time we got to the waterfalls, we had just 5 minutes to swim because the currents were getting rough. Though disappointed about the swim, we got to see a trickling waterfall at its full force. It was beautiful.