“You don’t just ‘jump’ once” - My first bungee jump

My friend and I booked a bungee jump on a whim hoping to evoke a real shock factor to our families and friends when we posted a video of us doing it without telling them.

We were lying in our hotel bed in Monteverde, basking in the glory of being in a large double bed after being budget travellers for the past 2 weeks, looking up things to do. Monteverde has a lot of ‘extreme’ sports options from zip lining, to 4x4 tours, and canopy walk. But we wanted something more. And the greatest, extremest thing we could find was the bungee jump. The highest bungee jump in the whole of Central America in fact.

We were more focused on the excitement of surprising people than on how scary it could be and what a bungee jump actually entails to really When we booked it we weren’t really scared because we were hyping each other up. But when the day came.. oh god. We booked to do our jump with Extreme, the largest bungee jump in south America at the time. The thing with bungee jumps that you don’t think about is that it’s not just one ‘jump’. You fall, you come up and then you fall all over again. And this one ‘bungee jump’ becomes like 4 or 5. And then after that you are just left there, dangling in mid air seeing the spinning ground beneath, being held on by your ankles. You are in no control, at the complete mercy of your feet. It’s not like you can grip something tighter, or not look down. You just flail there until a caribena is fed down to you and you attach it to your waist and then fianllyyou start to get righted and pulled up. Then you have something to grip on to.

The jump itself was daunting. You sit in a metal cage with the other jumpers, which is then extended out into the middle of a ravine. The open the gate of that cage, the first person stands on the ledge. Everyone counts you down and then you jump.

I’ve included a video of my jump below so you can get a feel of what I experienced. I am 18 years old here, and I have to say, travelling on a budget and not eating much.

It’s honestly a once in a lifetime experience. I’m glad I did it, but I don’t think bungee jumping is something I’d want to do again…