Workshop Notes: Montezuma Costa Rica Canopy Zip-Line Tour

April 1, 2010

tags: camera, Costa Rica, Mal Pais, photo, Photography, Travel, workshop

Pura Vida! panorama by Rob Knight

The question everyone asks when you return from Costa Rica is “did you do the zip-line?”.

In case you haven’t been to Costa Rica, there are zip-line facilities EVERYWHERE. I have done the Sky-Trek near Arenal a couple of times, and it is always a great time. We wanted to take the students at our spring workshop in Mal Pais to have this exhilarating experience, so we took the whole gang over to Montezuma Sun Trails canopy tour.

The facility and the guides were top notch. It takes a while to get 15-20 tourists strapped into harnesses and helmets, but a couple of white-faced monkeys entertained us while we waited for the group to suit up. There are 9 cables between 11 platforms on the tour. We were treated to incredible panoramic views along the way, and even had a break to swim in the Montezuma River. Don Zwicker jumped off of the small waterfall AND the bigger waterfall below. We heard the bigger falls were 50 feet high, but I cannot confirm that 😉

Jesse gets strapped in While Don looks on

After the zip-line tour we went into Montezuma for lunch and some street photography. Montezuma offers opportunities for everything from architecture to portrait photography. There is a beautiful wooden church that was a great subject for some HDR shots. We spoke briefly to the music director for the church, who was extremely friendly and very excited about his work with the children at the church.

If you’re in the Montezuma area I can highly recommend the Montezuma Canopy zip-line tour. I would advise you to wear sandals (not flip-flops) if you have them, and definitely wear your swim suit. Bring a compact camera if you have one because it is almost impossible to bring a DSLR on the tour. We will definitely keep this trip as part of the itinerary for our spring photo workshop in Mal Pais. Hopefully you can join us next time, or come to Arenal with us this September. http://arenalworkshop.eventbrite.com/

Check out this post about the canopy tour by one of our attendees, Kyle Hudson.