Let me tell you a little bit about a little something I like to call “Canyoning.” I had heard this mysterious sport described on many of my tours, but couldn’t really wrap my mind around exactly how it all made sense and neither will you. I have pictures though so just bear with me here. For those of you who may not be familiar with it, Canyoning is basically going to the top of a gorge making your way down by way of jumping off rocks into small pools, sliding down rock faces, repelling down waterfalls, etc. Whatever it takes to get down, you have to do and you have to do it right or in the words of our Kiwi guide Tim, “You’re gonna have a problem.” There were a few times when Tim would tell us what was ahead and how we were gonna handle it and it just left me thinking, “there’s no f-ing way this guy is being serious right now,” only to find out I was clearly underestimating the trip as well as Tim. By the end of the day Tim could have told me to somersault down the mountain and finish it off with a triple gainer and I’m pretty sure I would have given it my best shot. To be honest there was one point where they said, “Ok, this pool is plenty deep and wide enough to jump into so do whatever tricks you want here.” At this point in the trip, just jumping off a rock 15-20 feet above the water with no tricks would have been way too lame so everyone, including me, Graham, and Ben, just starts trying to do flips and stuff even if we had no idea if we could do it or not.
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Some other extreme directions went something like this.
-"Ok, put your right foot on top of mine and push off the rock on your left with your other foot. Jump over the waterfall into the rock on the other side and turn your back to the wall while in the air. Keep your arms up once you hit the wall and slide down the rest of the way”- Are you shitting me?
-“So, do you see the little space between the waterfall and the wall on the right? That’s where you have to land. Don’t jump too far out either because there is a rock that comes out in front of you. You wanna go right there (pointing). 3-2-1 Go!”
At one point in the trip Ben looks at me and says something that I think really put us in our place for the trip. “Lets get one thing straight, we give bike tours, these guys are ****ing tour guides.” I feel comfortable in saying that in Paris, at no point during my tours, be it Segway or bike, that my customers trust me with their overall well being nor do I feel overly responsible for their every move. My only option to get down was to do exactly what these guys said. Some of the drops were upwards of 60 feet.
You can see that on each of our helmets was a nickname. These made for a good laugh as you can imagine especially when I strapped on “pussycat.” Very strategic choice on my part I know. Turns out these aren’t just for laughs but they are the names that the guides and cameramen call you to get your attention. So all day I was responding to grown men calling me “pussycat.” Graham was “Bandit” and Ben was “Growler”. Due to the potentially graphic nature that the name “pussycat” lends itself to, I will forewarn you that some of the pics may seem... well you know what I’m talking about.
Although EXTREMEly awesome and exhilarating, Canyoning wears you down. All day you are constantly pushing yourself to do shit you would never do anywhere else at anytime while some dude is standing next to you giving you a 3 second countdown. There’s no time to contemplate whether or not you think you can do it, you just go for it. At one point Ben had to ask the guy for a countdown just so he would make himself jump. Every corner was a new adventure. You would land in the freezing cold water, get out as quick as you could and try to pump yourself back up for the next obstacle. Overall, we descended about 800ft, that’s an 80 story building. So when the day was over we all passed out for a few hours on the ride home and back at the hostel. Next up: Skydiving
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