la vida es una aventura...: PaRaGLiDiNg Like A Professional...

NOT! But, I gave it my best shot, had fun doing it, and laughed along with everyone else after completing what everyone agreed was the "best crash landing."

Paragliding is really popular in Lima and on pretty much any given day you can walk along the cliff that borders the water and see several people jumping off the cliff to let the wind carry them away. Fortunately for us "professionals" we did not paraglide off the cliff. Instead, we went a little ways outside of Lima, to a place called Pachacamac, where there were plenty of sand dunes for a soft "crash" landing. And, since we were on the sand dunes instead of over the ocean, we got to fly on our own instead of with an instructor.

Welcome to the sand dunes!...I promise you that is a lot steeper than it looks!

FLIGHT #1

Trying my best to "look" ready for this...

Helmet ...check!

Almossstttt readyyy

Ready?!... GO!!!

I'm up for my first flight...that is sure to be short lived!

My fateful turn where I start to notice the sand becoming closer and closer...

AND CRASH!...first crash landing...the dust hasn't even settled yet.

For every flight we had a radio attached to the front of us so the instructors could..well..instruct us! Obviously, instruction or no instruction, the first time was not alllllll that successful...

Flight #2 on the other hand was luckily a different story!

FLIGHT #2

And, I know there is not proof...but I had a perfect landing to go along with this perfect flight! :) It was fun!

Then there was Flight #3...and well...you'll see...

FLIGHT #3

Feeling quite confident after Flight #2...

And see where that gets me?!

OOPS!!!!

Feeling a little embarrassed..

Waiting to try again while looking super stylish in this "diaper-bottom" paragliding harness!

Last Chance!

The key is to keep running! Don't think that you've
made it up and sit down to enjoy the ride...
just keep running, just keep running, just keep running running running!