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- One with my feet to prove I was there…..
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- Trying to hold the camera straight
On Monday we woke up and checked out of the hostel and waited for news concerning the hang gliding outlook for the day. While we were eating breakfast, Pablo, the guy in charge of the hang gliding, called the hostel and asked to speak to me. This made me really nervous because talking on the phone in Spanish is always an adventure. I do pretty good face to face but sometimes the accents over the phone are just too much. I was especially nervous because sometimes people from the country are impossible to understand in person! Luckily, Pablo was easy enough to understand. His first question was do you want to fly today. What a question! Of course, I want to fly today!!! The outlook was good, so Jess and I left the hostel to catch a bus to the mountains. We made it to the bus station and bought a ticket to the small town La Cumbre for $5 a piece. The bus ride lasted two hours and led us past some excellent scenery. We arrived in La Cumbre a little bit after 2:00 and waited and had some lunch at a little café next to the bus station. Finally, a whole bunch of people showed up in trucks to take us up into the mountains. We drove for about 10 minutes up and down some really crazy gravel roads. There where several spots along the way where I thought geez, “this could be South Dakota” There were even no hunting signs! Finally, we arrived at a point where we could see other hang gliders and the truck stopped. We got out and walked to the “take off point” I was a little nervous but seeing all the other hang gliders floating around peacefully sort of like hot air balloons was a soothing sight. One of the instructors strapped me into this backpack that had a seat of sorts and a backup parachute. I got a really fast paced lesson in how to run and jump. (As if it wasn’t obvious) Luckily for me, I was with the guy in charge so I got to watch everybody else go first. He also had the biggest parachute. (That can’t hurt anything right?) Finally it was my turn, and I ran and jumped!!!! The whole flight was awesome and for the most part tranquil. We were even joined in flight by a couple of Argentine condors! There was only one scary part of the whole flight. There were about 2 seconds when I thought, “Oh geez we are going to run into the cliff.” As soon as I had the thought we turned and headed in another direction, but a strong gust of wind blew us back even faster. At this point we were so close to the cliff that I thought we were goners. All of sudden the guy pulled a cord and we went into a very brief free fall. During the fall we turned sharply and were heading in a safe direction again. After about 20 minutes we landed in a pasture not too far from our starting point. We had to wait for somebody to come find us
