into the great wide open

Brendan, Parker, Vienna and I decided to go paragliding today. This is where we jumped off a cliff. Literally.


Vienna was wearing flip flops, which aren't great for paragliding. Luckily I was able to loan her some duct tape.


Contemplation...


Vienna, off into the wild blue yonder




Brendan


Parker


Me with Jose, my excellent pilot. He spent the better part of our ride telling me to "relax, baby". :-) I can't get my video to load...technologically challenged, I am. The video involves a lot of screaming...

When it was all said and done, we ended up spending about seven hours up on that mountain. The weather has to be exactly right for paragliding so we spent a lot of time twiddling our thumbs. We did meet two other American girls, one of whom was from Cleveland. Small world! Even though I am completely scared of heights, paragliding was very, very cool. Proper shit your pants material, you might say. The view was crazy! It was raining when Vienna and I went up, so we landed in Orquillos but the boys landed closer to the jump site. They also soared much higher than we did, but I was just fine with the level of height we achieved. Yikes. And, the boys took pictures up in the air. I had a white-knuckled grip on the straps for most of it, although Jose eventually convinced me to let go for a minute.

Afterwards, we had the cab driver drop us off in Urubamba where we stuffed ourselves with Pizzawasi. I ordered a family pizza for Vienna and myself and the waitress laughed at me. Once dinner was over we stocked up on wine and made our way home to Orquillos, where Maren was making homemade gnocchi. I didn't think I was still hungry but I managed to eat two plates. Paragliding makes me eat like a goat.

Best. Day. Ever.