Not So Clear and Present DangerThere's something about travel that imbues even those of us who always wear a seatbelt in the back of a cab and return our books to the library on time with a suddenly fearless sort of "now or never!" mentality that we'd never find present in ourselves at home. "Ah, when else am I going to swim with sharks / eat deep-fried grasshoppers / try skydiving?" we think to ourselves. "I'm on vacation! What can go wrong?"
Why, just last week, my boyfriend and I were cycling across a bridge in Banos, Ecuador, when a few men approached us with a rope and a harness and asked if we were interested in bungee jumping. I admit I just couldn't work up the nerve to voluntarily throw myself off a bridge---perhaps if the Macarena had been playing on a loop for the last six hours it would have been a different story---but Sean decided that bungee jumping in Ecuador was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. And with only a fleeting thought as to how safe it might be, this impromptu act of kamikaze craziness, he paid the ten bucks and stepped into the harness.
He was fine, of course (I like to think it had something to do with all the fingers I crossed), but some people just aren't so lucky. Like poor Amber May White, for example, the 15-year-old girl who lost her life in a parasailing accident last month while on vacation with family friends in Pompano Beach, Florida. Her mother alleges that the reason for Amber May's death is that the parasailing industry is only very loosely regulated , meaning anyone with a rope, a boat, and a parachute could set up a parasailing business without having much of an idea of a) what they're doing and b) what might go wrong.
It follows, of course, that if the parasailing industry in Pompano Beach isn't regulated, then you can bet your bottom dollar that the bungee-jumping industry in a tiny town in South America probably isn't either. Thank goodness for lucky escapes.
Even I---a person who all but makes the designated driver take a breathalyser test before I'll get in a car with them at home---will quite willingly hop into cabs on vacation with very little regard of who's driving me, where they're going, and how many points they might have on their license already (assuming they even have a license, of course.) It's as if I think that the mere act of being on vacation is some sort of invisible full-body lifejacket, and that nothing will happen to me because, well, I paid an awful lot of money for a ticket to get here, and wouldn't it be an awful waste if it did?
This isn't a great way to think, of course, but safety concerns often get tossed in the trash with the last of that milk you don't want spoiling in your refrigerator when you go away, as if by turning the key in the lock, grabbing your suitcase, and running out to meet the waiting airport shuttle, you're shucking off your instinct of sensible self-preservation along with your worries about work. So all I ask is that perhaps next time a fun but potentially dangerous opportunity presents itself while we're on vacation, we should look before we leap. Quite literally, if it's bungee jumping we're talking about.
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Comments
Glad you guys made it back safely! Of course, you know what they say, you're more likely to be killed by the bungee jump within six blocks of your house than you are with the one that's far away.
I grew up in Panama City and as a small child witnessed a horrible parasailing accident. The boat flipped over, cutting the cord loose, and the person batted around in the skies for hours, unable to come down. Several times, the wind nearly blew him through the windows of high-rise condominiums.
And so, I have never, ever indulged in that sport. But bungee jumping is tempting.