There is no view of the volcano from the volcano view room. The cloud cover is still thick, and the rain continues. The weather, however, has not curtailed my adventuring while here. In fact, I conquered (too strong a word--maybe suffered through and lived) two great fears yesterday. First, I rappelled down several waterfalls--the first one was 165 feet high. I cannot say that I enjoyed this experience, but I'm proud that I followed through. Now, it looked like it could be a fun exercise. The guides rappelled in two or three hops Spidey style. I crashed into the rocks, got stuck in the waterfall, and shook nearly to tears as I walked toward the ledge each time it was my turn to go down.
I really thought I was going into emotional collapse once I had finished. I know my deodorant had stopped working. So in an effort to soothe my frayed nerves, I decided it was time to avail myself of the world-class spa services. What a beautiful spa. But how awkward I felt still. I inadvertently broke off the wooden shower door handle; the toilet became stopped up; and I couldn't figure out how to work the fancy sink handles to get the water to run--I washed my hands in the (now broken) shower. But this was all before the massage and the notion of a 90-minute Swedish massage just seemed all the sweeter. How wonderful the massage was until . . . she massaged my stomach, and yes, dear God, she touched my belly button. Over and over again. I have a belly button phobia--meaning not that I am afraid of belly buttons, but I am very scared of anyone touching (or even looking too hard at mine). I blame my older brother for this phobia--when I was about eight or nine, he convinced me that a belly button, could explode and all of your insides would come out with just a simple touch. I have guarded my belly button ever since.
The massage terror only lasted a few moments. And I survived. And I think today, maybe I will do a reflexology treatment to recover. But first, there is the matter of whether I can handle doing the zip lines across the jungle . . . stay tuned.
