ZIP-A-Dee-Do-Da

The great thing about having visitors when you live in a tourist destination is that you have an excuse to go do all the tourist stuff. Since we have moved to Cancun we have done our share. We have been to Xel-Ha, Xcaret, The Jungle Tour, Crococun Zoo, been to La Parilla for Mexican food and mariachis and yesterday we tried out the Selvatica Canopy Adventure zipline tour.

It was the best fun yet!! The tour consisted of 11 ziplines, a bike ride to a beautiful cenote (a 150 foot freshwater sinkhole) where there was a zipline to jump in and time to refresh yourself with a swim before heading back for a lunch of chicken fajitas, rice and beans. The tour guides were really awesome and so good with the kids.

Selvatica is located a little past Puerto Morelos and you have to go down a long road to get into the jungle, but it was worth it. We arrived a little early, but that was okay, it gave us all a chance to try out the Segways they had available for the bike ride portion of the tour. After trying them out, the boys decided to pay the extra money and take the Segways because when are you going to get a chance to ride Segways again?

I'll just title this one "Danny Blart, Mall Cop" if you don't mind.

Here we are in our gear, ready to go. (Actually the photo was taken after the ziplines, but we didn't have our camera before and you can't have it up in the ziplines since you need both hands and constant attention, so we took a group one after) One of the guides took this photo and I don't know if he meant for it to be crooked or not, but I like it that way.

Here is Patrick zipping through the jungle upside down. After we had gone on a few of the lines, the guides let you do it upside down with one of them behind you. It was really cool going over all the trees not holding onto anything! The ziplines were about 15-20 feet high above the jungle floor, so we were definitely up there!

I forgot to mention that these photos were taken by the photographer that is on the tour with you and they sell the photos plus a video at the end of the tour. We bought each of our photos and got the video free. I just took a digital photo of each of the photos cause I'm ghetto like that. 

Here is Danny on the zip. Looks like a pro already. The only thing slowing you down at the end of the zip is the Mexican braking system, a.k.a. the gloves you see on our hands. They had a very hard leather piece in the palm and to break all you had to do was close your fist. So technologically advanced, I know.

Here is Sarah on the line. She went too slow and got stuck near the end of one of the lines and Danny came up behind here and pushed her in a little ways before the guides swung out and brought them both in to the tree platform.

Me upside down on the line.

No, my babies did not sit this one out. They were first in line on every zip since they had to be tethered to a guide the whole time. You have to be 3 years old to go on the tour, but 8 to go unassisted, so all the kids went with a guide on each line. I was afraid one of them would get scared and we would have to turn around, but they all loved it. Here is Ella going upside down. Why oh why am I encouraging my babies to fly through the jungle 20 feet in the air??

Jackson didn't quite get in the correct position (feet crossed and up above toward the line)

Kaley opted out of going upside down, but she certainly could have.

After we did all 11 ziplines we got a 10 minute break to go to the restroom, get our bathing suits on, etc. before we headed out to the cenote. They didn't provide small bikes, so me, Sarah and the kids rode in the van and the boys went on the Segways.

Here is a view of the cenote. It sure was refreshing after a hot day in the jungle!

We all took a turn on the zipline into the cenote and Jackson decided he was brave enough to go too. Everyone on the tour was cheering him on as he climbed up and grabbed on.

And there he goes! As soon as he came back up from the water (I had gone before, so I was waiting below for him) he said, "THAT was crazy."

And here is some of our group on the rope bridge. It was hard work getting back to the wooden staircase to go for another round on the zip.

Ella decided at the end that she couldn't let Jackson outdo her, so she went on the zip into the water as well. I took video of her instead of stills. She was brave, but landed kind of in a forward belly flop, so the wind was knocked out of her.

(I keep trying to load the video but it just does not want to upload. I keep getting errors)

All in all it was a great day and I would highly recommend this tour to anyone. Fun for the whole family and all the guides were so great.

Sometimes being a tourist for a day isn't such a bad thing, just look at all the fun things you get to do.