Today I went with Guto's family and a group of other people to a park deep into the Gaúcho wilderness, that has a zip line, rappelling, and rafting. To get there you have to drive for about an hour on dirt roads far from any civilization. We even drove across a river on a "ferry" which looked like it was from the 1800's. It had room for two cars and was propelled by a man with a stick. When we finally got there we did the zip line first. There were about 10 people in our group that actually did everything. We each got to go down the zip line twice. There were two parts to the zip line. The first went across a huge valley and stopped at the other end, then you got hooked up to another line which went back across the the other side of the valley where you would get unhooked and hike back up to the starting place. It was really amazing. It was just like flying. And the view was amazing, there were no buildings in sight, just endless Brazilian wilderness. The second time did it I went horizontally, like superman, which was really awesome. After the zip line we all went to rappel down a waterfall. It was 35 meters high (115 feet) and very slippery. I didn't slip but Guto ended up flipping upside-down right in the middle of the waterfall. There wasn't much water and he got back up again so he was alright. The rappelling was really cool too. It was really high and very tropical, with water and moss and algae everywhere. We went down two at a time, roped together. I ended up going down with the tallest guy there. Right at the beginning (which was the scariest part) he started slipping and sort of running sideways away from me. I was fine except that I was roped to him so he kept pulling me and I kept struggling to keep my balance! But it was alright, just a little scary. The guide told us that we were totally safe. If we let go of our rope, we were attached to our partner, if our partner's rope broke there was the third security rope attached to the rock, and if that rope happened to break, it was really our time to go anyway. The guides were all really cool and they loved to joke around. After all that we went back to the main building where they had a snake, a lizard, and a GIGANTIC spider. It was literally, without exaggeration bigger than my hand. I don't know how but I got convinced to pick it up and let it climb on me. It wasn't dangerous because this type of spider doesn't have venom and is very calm but it was such a weird feeling. I had to use two hands to hold it. It was really light and fuzzy, it kind of felt like a bunch of pipe cleaners. Even at the ends of it's legs there were little poky things to grab on to stuff. It was crazy.
Here's the ferry we went on. (Notice the 60 year old guy that powers it)
Here are some pictures of the zip line:
