This weekend I went for the first time to a canopy tour. This is one of those zip lines that let you fly through the trees. These type of tours are extremely common here and it is almost a Costa Rican tourist staple, so I figured I should try one out.

The place was about 30 km north of Bagaces on the slopes of the nearby Volcano Miravalles. I went with a friend of the owners and we only had to pay a fifth of the price normal tourists pay. There was another group of tourists from Florida that went with us. The first part of the tour was a steep kilometer or so walk up into the forest. The forest was a rain forest and was full of animals and birds. There was lots of toucans in the tree and agoutis (they look like big rats) on the ground and there were plenty of leaf cutting ants making trail. Then we reached the first platform and we were hooked up to the line and zipped down to the next platform. There were about 10 or 15 different platforms and some were steeper or longer than the others. On some of them you could go upside down or in superman fashion which really felt like flying over a forest. The final zipline was about 500 metres long and went all the way from one of the tallest trees in the forest back down to the road where we arrived.

The weekend before I went horseback riding again, but halfway through I had to stop for a soccer game. It was the first time I have played in the big stadium field and it was a lot of fun. The field was slightly square which made the goals closer together and the sidelines really far apart, but it didn't take too long to adjust to.

This week marked the return of the dry season. On Monday night the wind started to blow and it has been blowing ever since. All of the clouds in the sky are gone now and there is no rain. It is also unusually cold. It must be in the low 20's with a high wind chill factor. I actually had to use my blanket for the past few nights. I also started taking weekly dancing lessons in Bagaces so I can go from a horrible dancer to merely very bad. I am learning dances such as merengue, salsa, and kumbia which are always played at the nightclubs here.