Canopying in South Africa

South Africa - A place where you have a scope for many adventures, if you are interested to do, like abseiling, sky diving, canopying, ostrich rides, segway rides, zip rides and a lot more! One of the adventures that I performed was Canopying, where I was harnessed and hung to a rope connecting two huge mountains. I traveled from mountain to mountain sliding onto the rope with thick gloves on my hands. There were totally eleven slides to reach the destination. After two slides, there was a chance to decide whether it was enough of an adventure and we can choose to walk away. But, Once we are past the third rope, there was no scope to go back without finishing the eleven slides. It was a rainy day. Rain in South Africa was not the way it rains here in India. It was a very slight drizzle and highly windy. The climate, dress, helmet and the entire - it felt like we were astronauts walking on the moon.

The ropes were made of some steel and hence highly slippery when wet. We were to apply breaks in order not to end up banging our legs to the mountain at the landing. If we apply extra breaks, we will end up hanging on the rope itself without reaching the landing point. We will have to drag ourselves to the mountain on the rope bearing our entire weight on our arms. There was high fog all around and from the elevation we were at, it was completely as though we were sliding over the clouds high above in the sky! The first slide was scary. In the midway, neither could I see the starting point from where I began to slide, nor the landing point. The wind was so noisy that I could hear nothing other than its uzzzzzzzzzz. The sound itself was scary. As we moved from mountain to mountain, the fog slowly began to clear up, the fear faded away, the fun exponentially increased with the confidence fully built! Nature and its beauty moved us forward with the site of the beautiful mountains - some green, some brown, some white; some foggy, some clear- with waterfalls running in between here and there.

After all the slides with a floating experience, there was a 20 minute trek to reach the jeep. With the costumes that felt like they weighed about 5Kgs, we had to drag ourselves against the hilly terrain with no sign boards on the way. As there was no other way, we decided that it was the right way and walked across 3 hills where we finally saw the open top jeep to take us back to the reception! The slight drizzles were all over us, eyes never tired of watching the beauty around, mouth not tired of praising it..Awesome experience!! Simply loved every minute spent over there..