Colossal

published 11 May 2007

The program said it was going to be a segment on “The Economic Value of Leisure.” It was just, really, an excursion in an amusement park. All 14 of us didn’t mind. Actually, we were hyped. We had been traveling by coach all week, visiting all sorts of organizations in five different cities, listening to presentations, conducting interviews, doing research on one topic or another, and, of course, writing. Some people were getting too competitive and there was some tension that hadn’t been there during the first weeks of the course. For crying out loud, it was Saturday afternoon. We needed a break.

According to the managing director, Heide Park Soltau was the biggest theme park in Northern Germany, attracting visitors even from nearby Denmark. The press officer added that the park had the distinction of being in the Guinness Book of World Records (see we are not the only nation tickled pink at making it to this crazy book) for having the steepest wooden roller-coaster ride in the world. The Colossus sped along at 120 km. per hour and had numerous troughs. The three-minute ride began with a 65-degree drop. This was the highlight—everything else was supposed to be gravy.

I realized, however, that if I reported on the park based on the press kit given us, safely from a distance, I would be committing lousy and irrelevant writing. Bad, because I’ve been exiled here to learn precisely how NOT to do that.

I decided to take the ride and then live to tell about it. And look, I’m still in one piece.

***

Having been on a pre-arranged tour, we were spared the trouble of having to line up for The Colossus. They even asked us where we wanted to sit. I had entrusted my bag to Liberty, business editor of Sun Star Cebu who was my fellow Filipino in the course. The seats were in pairs; I chose to be in the second row.

As we seated ourselves and buckled up, I noticed that my classmates, who were normally talkative and even rowdy, were not saying a word. The silence was not comforting at all, like all of us were wondering whether we were doing the right thing and whether there was time to back off.

There wasn’t. The trains started to move. The first 15 or 20 seconds was boring. We moved slowly along a flat, albeit very high, surface. From that height, I could see the beautiful countryside.

However, I also saw that the path in front of us had become shorter and shorter. That was an ugly sight. It meant that The Drop was coming closer. For the first time, I realized, and with horror, that the tracks were wooden. And that they creaked. Uh-oh, I thought, didn’t wood fall out of style several centuries ago?

And it’s not as if I had never been on a roller coaster before. Compared to The Colossus, however, those kiddie rides were elementary. This one was PhD.

I had planned on imitating people in the theme park’s ads—you know, smiling, both arms raised, looking every bit pleased. But I couldn’t smile, and my arms felt as though they were frozen. I merely latched on the hand rail in front of me.

And then we dropped.

The Drop didn’t feel like 65 degrees. It felt like 90 degrees. I could hear my own voice, and I was definitely not squealing in glee. What I heard was more of a prolonged, petrified cry of agony. What had I gotten myself into?

Was this how far I would go to dig for material to write about? Briefly, I chastised myself for not writing instead about those hideous windmills (Germany was a leading wind power producer) or the fields of rapeseed that abound in the motorway (rapeseed was a flower from which cooking oil and fuel could be extracted). These were valid environmental points to raise.

But we were still falling, until finally, we were at the bottom. We started to ascend again. By that time, the trains had such momentum, we were going so fast, and then we were going down again. The press officer was right. After hurdling the first drop, you wouldn’t really notice the others. What he left out was that since you were going very fast, you were up again and down again, twisting from your left to your right and back again, completely helpless as a rag doll. Several times, I found that my head was dropping, kept down by an immense force. I wanted to raise it but I couldn’t. I felt like I was having a nightmare. Only that I wasn’t sleeping but fully awake, even though I was squinting, eyes only half open all the time.

Hands down, it was the longest three minutes in history.

When the train did stop, I was immobile, spent and staring out to nothing. I lingered there a few moments, even as the next batch of thrill-seekers was impatiently waiting for me to vacate my seat. There was only one thought: It’s over.

I walked in a daze, back to the group, to the rest of the class who opted not to take The Colossus. I took my bag from Liberty, put my shades back on and tried to appear cool. People asked how the ride was, and I said, I was just happy that it was over. It was a half truth, though. The other half was that in spite of the ensuing dizziness, I had started feeling mighty pleased with myself.

We split up into smaller groups so we could be more flexible exploring the rest of the park. We had another two hours before we were due to assemble again. Lib and I took off. I ate a hefty meal— sausage, bread, French fries, Coke, ice cream and popcorn—and took a series of serene rides. We ate a lot, talked a lot, and laughed a lot. I believed I could take a ride as harmless as a merry-go-round without being embarrassed about it. After all, I had been through the worst. I was smug. I didn’t have to prove anything.

In the coach back to Berlin, and after a nap (see we were all exhausted), we started looking at the pictures taken by the park cameras which showed the facial expressions of those who rode The Colossus. The pictures were not flattering at all. They were more like those you would use to blackmail somebody. We laughed at how terrified we looked and how crazy we were. It was, indeed, a good day.

***

Fear itself is fearful. The books always say that the way to conquer fear is to look it squarely in the eye and stand up to it. What the books don’t say is that facing up to fear is not as heroic or glorious or romantic as it sounds. Your knees still wobble. Your hands still shake.

What keeps you in the battle is the knowledge that there is no turning back. The only comforting thought is that all of it must end sometime. In the end, if you finally conquer what you fear, you can conquer anything.

It is not likely that I should be going back to Soltau anytime soon. But in case I do, or in case I take a similar thrill ride in the future, I may just sit in the very front, raise both arms, and smile for the cameras. With fear out of the way, I may actually enjoy the experience.