A Zip Line in Belize

Yes, yes, more Belize.  Honest, I will get it all out of my system someday.  Maybe.  Meanwhile check this out.

We went on a zip line.  A zip line is a cable run through the jungle canopy that you ride with the help of a couple of pulleys, a harness, and some thick gloves.  Oh, and a couple of hunky tour guides. 

 
This one was at a resort close to Banana Bank.  I don’t remember the name of the resort, but they had cave tubing and other fun stuff too which we didn’t get around to.  We might have if I hadn’t been sunburned and/or my mother hobbled by surgery, but this was probably enough adventure for us.

We walked up the path depicted above, then walked some more, and some more.  The entire ride is manual from start to finish.  At least parts of the path were interesting.  Check out the designs in the walkway.

Once at the top the guides attached our pulleys to the cable and away we go!  My dd needed a little encouragement.

You’re weight carries you from platform to platform. 

You use your hands, covered in thick leather gloves, as brakes by grabbing on to the cable.  I was pretty good at it.  I didn’t brake too much and end up in the middle of the cable between platforms, nor did I crash into the tour guide waiting on the next platform except for once.
It’s a fast ride between one platform and the next.  Here’s the only shot I managed to get from mid-cable:

 

This was a dinky little line.  The highest point was only 80 feet up and there were only 6 platforms.  We repelled down to the ground from the last platform.  The whole thing, even considering how slowly my mother and I were moving going up the trail, was only about an hour long.  I hear there’s one over in Bolivia that has 18 platforms.  Hmmm…..

Alice