I’m starting a list of “Things to do before I die.” Skydiving was on the list before I learned that a childhood friend had had a terrible skydiving accident, broke his back badly, spent years in therapy, and is now a couple inches shorter.
The main item remaining on the list is to take a canopy tour: Strap into a harness and swing through the treelines of a rainforest, gliding on ziplines, rappelling down cliffs, climbing up through hollow trees, hanging out with monkeys and forest birds…
Canopy tours are offered all over the world — Mexico, South Africa, Jamaica, Costa Rica. Most of the tours advertised on the web are short — a few hours. But my father has a friend leading 7-day canopy tours in Costa Rica, where you pack in food, eat lala from the forest, sleep on platforms in the trees, seldom touch the ground.
For the record, this is my dream vacation.