The cable racer
Robinson Diaz lives in a small cottage high in the Andes Mountains of South America. Din is a 'cable racer', and every morning he faces the difficult task of taking the local teacher to her school. To do this, he first walks for an hour up to a place the locals call Los Pines (the Pine Trees). right at the edge of the 120-metre deep 'gorge of the Negro valley. Here, one end of a thick metal cable has been fixed to a wooden post. The cable stretches right across the deep valley to the other side, a kilometre away. A metal hook is fixed to the cable, with leather straps hanging from it. Diaz fastens the straps around his shoulders and waist, does a quick safety check and then, without hesitating, throws himself off the edge of the mountain. Attached to the cable by only the metal hook, he rapidly picks up speed and soon he is racing through the air. Crossing the valley by wire takes him 30 seconds. instead of the two hours it would take hint to walk down through the snake-infested rain forest and climb up the steep muddy slopes on the other side. As Diaz begins his trip, Diana Rios, a 23-year-old elementary teacher, is waiting on the other side of the gorge for the moment when he will come racing through the mist towards her at 160 kph. She will then return with him. hanging on to him as he goes back along a second cable. Diana had no idea when she took the teaching job that just getting to work in the village school would be so dangerous. 'At first I wanted to cry,' she says, 'clutching her books as the metal cable starts to rattle violently at Diaz's approach. 'But I soon got used to it. She still prefers to go with Diaz, though rater than making the frightening and hazardous crossing on her own.