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Everyday Adventures in Costa Rica: Tree Climbing in the Osa Peninsula

I was in the Osa Peninsula’s Matapalo, which means “strangler fig,” so what the heck, I agreed to climb 68 feet up a strangler fig and be yanked off the tree into a Tarzan swing that felt like free-falling from heaven to earth. What’s the worst that could happen?

As you can see from this video, I survived, but not without a moment of breathless terror.

Andy Pruter, the U.S. adventurer who affixed the ropes to the tree to make this climb possible, lives here and runs Everyday Adventures, offering both tree climbing and waterfall rappelling.

I watched him lose a hard-fought game of chess above a stunning beach overlooking the Pacific Ocean, so I know he’s not infallible. But when life and limb are in play, the ropes hold, and the tourists survive.

Everyday Adventures charges between $45 and $120 for adventures like this. Do it and send the pictures to your friends back home. You’re going to like the way you look. And you’ll live to tell about it.

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