Largest Urban Zipline....at the White Tower!

There are a lot of crazy things that happen in Panama, mostly related to driving and parties.  There aren't very many rules that are enforced, although it seems the policia is trying to crack down on some things lately.  The amount of things people can get away with here compared to in the US is shocking, including this awesomeness:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcwrRA2BIlw&sns=fb

It was a normal Wednesday.  My carpool was heading home from school and we all thought it was a good day to meet at the pool for some pool beers (5 of us live in the same building).  We invited a couple other people over who live in the neighborhood and had a little party.  When we arrived at the pool, we noticed big cables running from the roof out to the helicopter pad in front of our building.  We saw another group of people at the pool having some pizza and sodas and they were speaking English.  "Hey, do you guys know what's going on with the cables?" I asked innocently.  "Oh, we're filming a YouTube clip. Our buddy, Devin Supertramp, does extreme sports videos and is ziplining off this building for Speedstick," the camera man replied.  WHAT?!  We conintued talking with the guy and he informed us that in about 30 minutes, they would be jumping off the building and landing in the middle of the road on the Speedstick sign.  That's freaking awesome!! We waited eagerly for them to start.  They had a small drone flying around the top of the building, and some camera men down across the street filming upward.  We were all looking over the edge from the pool deck and noticed a few groups of policia scattered in the area.  The policia walked out in the middle of the road and held their hand out for traffic to stop. Remember, this is a work day, and by this point, it's prime commuting time, 5:30pm. Traffic stopped and it was eerily silent for a couple minutes.  

The camera men, walking out to the Speedstick circle 

All of a sudden people started jumping off the roof of our 62-floor building.  They ziplined for about 10 seconds, then let go.  They pulled their chute and navigated their way to the small circle in the middle of Avenida Balboa.  It. Was. Insane.  There were five people that we saw jump, but apparently they had been jumping all day.  Twelve times to be exact.  

Once they were done, they all came back to the pool area and we were able to give them some high-fives.  The camera man had us re-create our reactions and filmed us watching from the pool.  If you watch the video closely, you can see us standing at the pool, a big group of us with a baby.  Pretty awesome.  

Not only would that NEVER happen in the USA, jumping off a building into commuting traffic, but we also would never get to say, "Yep, we live in that building.  And yes, we watched it all happen.  In person."

Good ol' Panama :)