Excited to try zipline for the first time, we forgot to check the time, forgot our common sense elsewhere and forgot that businesses do observe lunch breaks. So imagine our horror when we arrived at Outland Adventure and saw the "Lunch Break" sign. Did we just ditch lunch just to watch the crew eat theirs?? One of the staff, who probably saw the disappointment in our faces, approached us and informed us that operations would not resume until 1:30pm. Time check: 1:00pm. Ooookay, so what to do to kill time? And more importantly, where to get food in this jungle? There were no sightings of carinderias nor sari-sari stores nearby so needless to say, we spent the next 30 minutes imagining crabs and shrimps and grilled liempo. I thanked God a hundredth time on that day for Kuya Joey and his efforts to keep us sane all throughout our early Holy Week penance in November.
After two decades, the staff finally called our attention and asked us to sign the waivers. After paying P500/each, we, along with seven other people, were gathered for a confidence booster talk while being harnessed (the thing kind of hurt on the leg area because I've thunder legs). We were asked to decide what positions to try among sitting, superman and inverted. And because we're first-timers, we decided to do the inverted position. Twice. * insert smug face here*
Cold sweat beads on my face - check! Clammy hands and feet - check! Involuntary shaking of the whole body - check! Please remind me again why I was doing this? T_T
Toto was the first to try - as usual. He's a very athletic person and he's always the calm one between the two of us so I knew this was going to be easy for him. The crew called him and tied him to hundreds of ropes to make sure that he wouldn't fall midway because that would surely make me go ballistic. After securing his harness, he was instructed to go on the edge of the jump off tower while facing the crew. We didn't bring our cameras with us because Lord knows how heavy they are and taking selfies would be the least of our concerns when hung above one of the deepest cliffs we've seen in our lives.
The next three pictures are from http://graceymoonlit.blogspot.com/2011/09/fly-high-with-zipline.html.
Three, two, one... AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! WHAT DID I GET MYSELF INTO AAAAHHHHHHHHH *insert all known profanities here*. I wish I had a GoPro with me to capture my reaction. Blood was seriously getting into my head and it was so hard to keep my eyes open especially when I could clearly imagine how difficult it would be to retrieve my body if the rope suddenly gave up. Man, the cliff is really, really deep. But I was on the point of no return. I challenged myself to keep my eyes open all throughout the ride but at some point, when I couldn't control the bloody images running through my head anymore, I shut my eyes. But that was only for a few milliseconds. Because I'm badass like that (pagbigyan ninyo na ako).
I sat with Toto in the waiting area and cheered for Ate Pong when she was sent to our direction in blazing speed. When the three of us were done with the Xcelerator we couldn't stop talking about the awesomeness of the experience. But the adrenaline has died down after waiting for the rest of the group to finish the first zipline. The thing is, you have to choose - be the first to try it and claim the bragging rights OR be the last and die of anticipation. Of course we chose to be first because we're just competitive like that. :))
After thirty minutes, all of us were led to the jump off point of the second zipline - The Repentor. It is shorter than the Xcelerator but that didn't make the zipline less exciting. It was still so much fun the second time around! But the thing here is, since Kuya Joey and the crew of Outland were already waiting to capture this golden moment, we had to smile all throughout because we didn't want awkward pictures of ourselves.
After the excitement has worn off, our stomachs couldn't handle the accidental hunger strike anymore. We asked kuya Joey to drive us to the old SM because we'd be meeting a family friend who owns a carinderia in front of the mall. We spent a good 90 minutes eating and catching up and were surprised to see that it was already 4:00 in the afternoon. Our deal with kuya Joey should have been finished 3 hours ago! But being the patient and kind person that he is, kuya Joey did not tell us to hurry up or anything. We're really grateful to him that he let us enjoy the city tour. When he drove us to our hotel, we gave him P2500 instead of our original deal of P1700 because one, we already spent the whole day for the tour, and two, he deserved it for being the best tour guide in the city ♥
How about you, did you try the zipline while in Davao?