It’s Saturday, I am not feeling well, and not feeling like going out. It’s time to google something interesting to do on Sunday, MySwitzerland.com answers it all.
After finding so many choices, Gantrisch Nature Park it is; where I can go hiking, photographing & ZIP-LINING (wouhouuuu), it’s something that I wanted to try ever since I was in South Africa in 2008.
on the web- What Zip-lining is about 🙂
Sunday in the early morning I went to the station -Bern Banhof- to figure out a train to take me there, showed them at the ticket office the suggested route by the website that turned out to be a 1 hour drive; a train followed by a bus. It took me another 20-30 minutes hike to figure out where the Seilpark -Zip lining Park- is after I was dropped off in a deserted area, that looked awesome, but just in the middle of nowhere. The hike was so beautiful, horse stables, vegetations, houses on cliffs, a bar restaurant right next to the Seilpark entrance, so let the fun begin 🙂
The ranger who was explaining safety measures barely spoke English, but I could more or less understand what she was trying to say.
- Me before Zip-lining (unfortunately I was all alone on that day,
- so nobody took a photo of me while zip lining 😦
It was soooo scary to slide on ropes, even when I was close to the ground, it really felt weird. But it was sooo cool, there were 7 routes to follow from the easiest to the hardest, I started by taking the hardest as it looked really tempting, couldn’t manage to move from one place to another, so I was advised to start by the easiest route, finished one route followed by the other, I was having a super time I just felt like Tarzan, until I was at the end of the 3rd route that required a 20 meters high Zip-line, I was hesitating too much as I kind of have a fear of heights and this one looked pretty scary to the extent that I missed my turn to let a 9 years old boy and his mum do the jump before me, until I decided to say a prayer, leave it to God & jumped. It was soooo fast to the extent that my hand that was holding the rope in order to be able to control my speed slipped off so I couldn’t slow down or stop myself from sliding. “Oh my God, the tree is so near, it’s whether I bump into the tree and get hit on the face or I twist my body a little to get it in my shoulder”, I thought to myself.
In few seconds I severely bumped my right shoulder into the tree, tried to stop myself to stand on the platform, but with no success, as a result I have slided on the rope again in the opposite direction, until I reached the middle of the rope & couldn’t move no more, I started to help myself to go to the platform by climbing on the rope with both hands & both legs, but it was really difficult. Started to feel helpless, praying, hoping that the rangers would notice the shitty situation that I am put in, seeing people watching me but my ego stopped me from asking for help, suddenly I heard a voice telling me: “I am coming to save you, hold onto my legs”, the ranger said, I could barely hold her legs from the pain that I was having in my arms & legs, it is very difficult to climb on a rope while being against gravity & lifting my whole body on my arms & legs. Then a guy was pulling both of us till we could both stand on the platform. My whole body was shaking, I started to cry out of agony, out of “I CAN’T BELIEVE WHAT JUST HAPPENED” feeling, couldn’t feel my body or even stand on my feet & my shoulder hurt terribly, was unable to imagine that this horrible experience really happened to me. The ranger tried to ease my pain by telling me “relax you’re fine, please don’t cry”, she helped me to go down the tree which was 20 metres high, we arrived safely on the ground while my body continued to shake. I decided to sit a little bit, then hiked for half an hour until I decided to go up again & started to zip line to face my fear of zip lining, hehehe :). But I didn’t have the guts to do that 20m zip line again, but I will definitely do it again when I have friends with me cheering “Do it. Do it.”
Passainte Assem 