la cumbre

LANDING! :)

Given the fact that I've spent the last month drowning (in the best possible way) in the chaos of living with nine very social people and in the demands of twenty one little children, this weekend was supposed to be (and was) a chance for me to decompress, spend some time alone, go to bed before 2am (slight exaggeration) and of course, go paragliding!

Unfortunately, there were a few hitches in this plan. For starters, the person who was supposed to take me paragliding failed to show up at the bus station at our pre-arranged time so I wound up spending about an hour waiting and finally I was so tired, so hungry, and I had to go to the bathroom so I called a cab and headed to my hotel - although it was a house, so I'm not sure what I should call it. It was however the sweetest little thing (pictures to follow soon - although with previously promised photos of my adventure in the national park).

When I was feeling better I went for a walk around town and saw a store that offered paragliding and since I had pretty much given up hope of meeting up with Pablo (who was supposed to take me) I went in to see if there was any possibility of me being able to go paragliding at all (pretty much the whole reason I went to La Cumbre in the first place).

Just as I started to talk to the woman in the store, in rushes another woman saying "Pablo lost his phone this morning and he was supposed to pick up a girl at the bus station but he forgot what time and I've been looking all over for her," and then she looked at me and goes, "are you Jane?"

And that's the story about how I wound up being driven the 15km to Cuchi Corral- the take off point for all paragliders.

It was absolutely insane, Cuchi Corral is basically a flat piece of land at the top of the mountain with a ramp that pretty much goes off the mountain into air. Tons of people just go up there everyday to take pictures and just generally watch people go paragliding. For those of you who don't know what paragliding is I have attached a picture :)

Within seconds of arriving at the top I was introduced to another guy (whose name I have forgotten) who was going to be taking me up. I was strapped in to my...contraption, which felt rather like I was wearing a turtle shell on my back. Basically for paragliding you are sitting down but for take off you have to wear your seat on your back and run and then once you are up in the air you pull two red straps at the side and slide into your seat.

I was strapped in front of my instructor and told that I needed to run off the ramp (into air) and that I couldn't stop no matter what. At this point my legs were all shaking and I was starting to doubt whether or not I had the confidence to get up in the air, but I wasn't given very much time to ponder this before the air pulled up the fabric wing (under which you are suspended) and we were pretty much forced into running. It's a really strange feeling because you are running on the ground one second and then you are running on air the next and then you are running on the ground once more before the wind finally lifts you up for good.

Once up in the air I'm pretty sure I had a permanent smile on my face. It is the most brilliant thing ever. You are so high up and you do dips up and down along the cracks in the mountain (sometimes you get so close you have to lift your feet up) and it's so beautiful.

The way it works is that there is the fabric wing and from it hangs your seat. The person in charge of moving it, has two (red) straps hanging down from either side and uses them to maneouver it. You pull down on the straps to go down and you let them go up if you want to go up. If you want to turn you pull down on the side you want to turn and release on the side you don't want to turn.

At the end of my flight, I was asked if I wanted some paragliding adrenaline, which basically included some extreme dips to both sides and a little bit of free-falling, which is absolutely amazing!

The rest of my weekend has been pretty chill but also really nice. Cuddled up in a double-bed alone at the place I stayed I got to sleep a straight twelve hours (which was so amazing) and now I feel rested and ready to deal with lots and lots of little children.


Chau.


PS - I find it a little weird that I am leaving in less than two weeks. It's really weird to think about how fast time has gone by.