Having gone to bed before midnight for the first time on this trip, Lindsay and I woke up easily around 9:30 for our 10am checkout from the hostel (which we naturally stretched until around 10:30). We had breakfast of tea (coffee for Linds), cookies, toast and dulce de leche to spread on the toast (and anything else for that matter). It was a warm, sunny day, and for the first time so far on the trip, we could both walk around comfortably in t-shirts and jeans. We had a few hours before we would be picked up for paragliding (!!), so we decided to walk around Mendoza. It was quite pleasant, and we found a great cafe with submarino, cafe con leche and light sandwiches as we decided it would be better not to eat anything heavy before paragliding.
At 2pm, Alejandro the professional paraglider and his assistant Juan picked us up from the hostel in their four-wheel drive mini SUV. We drove about ten minutes to get out of the city (It's pretty small, and after a few blocks turned in to suburbs: houses with little yards and such), then drove another ten minutes or so on the highway toward the mountains. It reminded me a lot of Southern California: dry, scrubby bushes on the chaparral landscape, but still pretty. As we got closer to the mountain, we left paved roads and drove about half an hour up the mountain (very slowly and carefully navigating the rocky, narrow road). We chatted on the way up; Alejandro said that we would go up one at a time and fly with him the 600m down from our launch point. We finally made it to the top of the hill and Lindsay and I watched excitedly while the two set up the parachute. The view was fantastic from up there: the expanse of dessert-like land dotted with vineyards and the beautiful, snow-covered Andes in the distance.
Lindsay, went first, and I watched as Alejandro hooked her into the halter and instructed her to walk, and then run in a certain direction. He caught the wind in the parachute and it lifted easily into the air, and before I knew it the two of them were flying off the top of the mountain.
I chatted with Juan as we drove down the mountain to pick them up, and it turns out that he had never been parasailing because he was afraid, and he even did the hand gesture for being afraid that we learned in the Argentine Experience! We made it to the landing zone after Lindsay and Alejandro, and Lindsay said it was awesome and couldn't wait for me to try it. So back up the mountain we went, and then it was my turn to be strapped into the harness and helmet.
The wind had picked up a little, so I had to fight to walk in the direction he told me to walk as he lifted the parachute behind us. Then we started running, but I only took I few steps before I was lifted off the ground and into the air by the parachute. I sat back into the harness, which was kind of like a chair, and enjoyed Mendoza from a bird's eye view. I was flying! We rode up and down, back and fourth on the wind currents. Alejandro explained how he was steering: pull with the left hand and we turned left, right and we turned right. It was surprisingly peaceful, and I was able to take a video of part of the trip (holding onto my phone for dear life). Unfortunately I got a little motion sick, so I didn't enjoy it as much as I might have. We flew for 10-15 minutes, and around minute 8 I was over it and ready to have my feet back on the ground. My favorite part was definitely the view.
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