canopy tour

Today I finally went on the Bastimentos Sky Canopy Tour, here at the resort. I was a little bit apprehensive when I lifted my feet off the platform floor and then it was bliss--- the wind in my face, exotic vines and giant tree trunks whizzing by, with the jungle floor several hundred feet below, and then I see the hand signal from the tour guide at the next platform ahead of me to break (pull down with my right arm) and I am there on platform 2. For 2 1/2 hours the 4 of us (my friends Guy, Christy, Sue and I) flew from one platform to the next-- 12 in all. In the middle we did the ropes, the net, floating steps and a tarzan swing, and the final zip was REALLY fun-- letting go with both arms and flying through the air-- like being a kid again. Next, I would like to go in light rain- that would be amazing! I heard the monkeys (white-faced capuchins) but didn't see any. I hear they get used to the canopy tours and then start hanging around close to the zipline trees again.
Tomorrow Steve and I are taking a boat to Almirante, on the mainland, and then a bus over the mountains to David, on the Pacific side of Panama. We are picking up a truck for the canopy tour and also getting gardening and restaurant supplies. Aside from a variety of machetes there isn't much in the way of gardening tools available in Bocastown and my crew needs some good pruning tools as well as protective gear. The terrain is so rugged here that we can't use mowers at all-- have to use weed whackers and if you don't protect the front of your pants you end up with little bits of wet grass and muck stuck all over your clothes. We also want to find a big pressure cooker and a food processor for the restaurant.We will drive the truck back to Almirante on Tuesday and then take a ferry back to Bastimentos with it. We need a truck that is reliable for transporting the canopy tour guests up the rocky hill from the public dock at Red Frog Marina about a mile to the entrance to the canopy tour. This is the first new vehicle purchased here in quite a while and everyone is excited to have a truck that won't need to see the repair shop for a while. We have our own mechanic shop here right next to the big warehouse. We employ 3-4 full-time mechanics fixing all of our construction equipment and miscellaneous vehicles. Vehicle break-downs here are as common as black flies in a Minnesota June and just as annoying. On Friday we had a truck loaded with cement block roll down a hill (was the emergency break really on or did it malfunction?) and turn over into a lowland. Our excavator showed up and one hour later the truck was back up on the road, with a broken windshield but could still start'er up. (The cement blocks still need to be fished out of the water). No one was hurt so just another day in the life here. Every week there are things like that happening and after being here for a few months you finally realize, 'Oh, yeah, dependable transportation is something of a luxury.'
Our own pool, at our house, was finished this past week and we went for our first swim yesterday. Me gusta mucho!