La Selva

Today I went zip lining and reppeling in the jungle.  I ate a big lunch at one of my host-dad's friends houses, and left at 2.  My host-dad dropped me off at the place where about 12 other people were boarding a truck to go on the trip.  Before I got on the truck, the tour guide greeted me in english and shook my hand, which was cool.  There were about 5 other people on the truck that spoke mainly english, and because of this the tourguide spoke in both spanish and english.  On the way to the place, he was telling us about how most zip-lines are about 100 meters long, and how the one we were going to ride was 800 meters long.  Along the way, we drove only on dirt roads, and passed several Guarani "neighborhoods",basically shacks, some with what appeared to be pretty big TVs inside. (weird, i know)  It was really cool to see the jungle, I've wanted to do that for a very long time.  at the end of the 12km truck ride, we stopped to go reppeling, and put on harnesses.  the ledge we went off of was maybe about 70 feet tall, and at the bottom was a beautiful clearing , where there was a 50-foot-tall waterfall and a creek that ran through the forest.  the reppeling was pretty fun, but pretty easy (it was mostly what I expected, which was good nonetheless)  after that, we walked out to an elevated spot where you could see out several miles, including the piranha river, and the coast of Paraguay along it.  during the hike, I talked to a canadian girl who was visiting Iguazu for fun, and staying in a hostel.  Before this she had been to Cuzco, Peru, as well as camping in the amazon, tought english in Ghana, and went on a trip to India through her college.  I was envious.
       After that, we went out to the spot where we would rappel.  we climbed up about 75 feet of wooden stairs to the canopy, and launched off of there.  It was pretty easy, although several people were scared, nervous, or extremely hesitant to lift their feet off of the treestand to lauch off.  It was really cool zooming through the jungle canopy at probably about 25 or 30 mph, very exhilarating.  after that, we went to a Guaraní gift shop, where there was some panflutes, blowguns, maracas, bracelets, wooden carvings of jungle creatures, and stuff like that.  Afterwards, we drove back, dropping off people back to their hotels, and finally stopping back at the place where we started.