It’s July 4th – Independence Day. I don’t think I could have spent it better any other way (except I could have captured it all on video to remember it!). Besides Christmas time and Cinco de Mayo, July 4th is one of my favorite holidays. I love the feeling of a summer day, with no work, sunning on the beach, the smell of BBQ, hanging with friends, and then the excitement of fireworks later in the night. But this year I created a new excitement – I paraglided off a mountain in Medellin.
We decided a few days before that we would definitely do this while visiting Medellin. The night before was a late night of drinking and we were all hoping that when we woke up this morning that we wouldn’t be too hung over (or too sick) from the Aguardiente that we wouldn’t be able to go. Not a chance, we were all ready (and a little tired)! So up we rose and headed to the bus station to get a local bus to take us up the top of the mountain. It took us an hour at least to drive up to the top. If the parachuting wasn’t going to get me sick, the bus ride sure did! We arrived at the mountain top to a restaurant and look out point and were met by one of the guys in the group who told us we had to now climb the steep but small little hill to the actual “top” where we would meet our tandem team member and they would suit us up. As he takes off on his moped, I’m thinking “why are we hiking up and he’s riding?”…. I wanted a ride up! 
The weather was great. The sky was clear and sunny. The birds were flying around at eye level with us. As we stood there waiting a little bit, a small prop plane flew right near us and headed down the mountain. It was just so very cool to be that high up and overlooking all of the city below us. It was so big! And very heavily populated! Other jumpers were taking off and it seemed like no problem at all. I was so excited and eager to go, not even scared at all. I was the smallest so apparently the first to go in my group. OMG!! Ok, now I was a bit nervous. I didn’t know what to do and I hadn’t watched the people before me too closely. Breathe….breathe… I could totally do this…. I was called over to where the parachute laid spread out on the ground and they strapped me up and strapped me in. I was doing this… no turning back now. My adrenaline was pumping, my heart was racing and three guys were all speaking at me in Spanish and I’m getting all confused and yet I heard “Corre!” and I just ran my little legs as fast as I could and next thing I know my feet are running in the air and we’re lifted off the mountainside and just floating in the sky! It was amazing!
I took in everything I could from that 25 min of being airborne. I felt weightless, just flying through the air overlooking the countryside at one side, and the city on the other. Birds were flying beside me, and we just drifted over trees and houses and animals. I was literally breath taken at how peaceful I felt. My partner didn’t talk, and I didn’t talk. I just soaked it all up and reflected on the moment, and how I wish I could feel more at peace in my life. About 15 minutes later, the silence broke, and my partner asked me (in Spanish) if I wanted to do swirls? Sure! Why the heck not! Except I forgot I had been drinking some strong, local devil juice the night before AND I hadn’t eaten breakfast yet! The thought enhanced my excitement and my adrenaline but it probably wasn’t a good idea on my empty stomach. No…. I didn’t throw up. Although as we made our loops of circles in the air, I laughed hysterically all the way. I laughed so hard I was practically in tears! And just as I do at Disneyland on the rollercoaster’s, I laughed out all my fears, all my worries, and all my stress. And then I realized it wasn’t everything from that moment, but everything I’ve been carrying for months! All the crazy, hectic crap in my life at that moment just went “c-ya later, buh-bye”… and all I could think was that I was so glad that I did this at the beginning of my trip to Colombia!
The landing hurt. It was a big thud on my ass but I was still on such an adrenaline high that I didn’t care. I took off all my gear, checked I could still walk, and then looked up and realized what I just did and where I came from. Amazing! If I could have high fived myself, I would have. Now it was a matter of playing the waiting game for the boys to come down. And I waited… and waited… and waited… The my tandem partner tells me “time to go”… Que?? Huh?? Wha??? He says “I’m taking you to the metro station”… again… huh?? I told him I was waiting for my amigos. And he tells me “they will meet you at the metro station”… hhmmmm. Something’s not adding up here. Not wanting to risk being left behind, I hopped in the cab with them, they dropped me off at the metro station, and he said “thank you, bye bye”… Luckily I had ridden the metro the day before (when we ventured into the ghetto) so I knew where I was and what to do. But what I didn’t know was where the heck Coconut and Gorky were at. Should I stay or should I go?? Donde estan los Miguels??? (I bet you’re wondering that as well right?) So…turns out they hadn’t even jumped yet! It’s now been an hour at almost since I jumped and here the boys were stuck at the top of the mountain still (ah, the wonders of cell phones and texting). Gorky said it started raining right after I jumped and so they were pretty much stuck there waiting for the weather to cooperate. They hadn’t even jumped yet, and it could be an hour, could be two… who knew! Well, darn. But I wasn’t going to let this damper the rest of my time in Medellin, so I decided to take this opportunity to go site seeing. I went back to the Pit Stop, got my travel book and made my way to the bustling downtown area. I picked up some tasty snacks from the street vendors, looked at some historical churches, walked down a few street markets to eye the good being sold, and then sat for a few minutes and people watched. It was very busy! After about 2 hours, I finally met up with the Mike’s. The met me downtown and we walked around the botero square – a big park filled with large Botero statues. We walked around a bit and played tourist with our cameras, then headed to a local fruit market (there seemed to be some SHADY people following us so we stayed long enough for a fruit smoothie, a walk down the stands and then we left).
None of us had really eaten a full meal that day, and we still had to get to the 8:30 bus to take us to Cartagena. We headed back to our favorite Zona Rosa area where all the great food was and the good looking people were out for the night. I had a glass of wine and some pizza. We had just been commenting on how we didn’t really want to leave and it would be good to stay one extra night here in Medellin, when within minutes it started pouring rain! Yeah, we didn’t feel bad for leaving then. We finished up dinner, got our bags from The Pit Stop and headed to the bus station. We missed the 8:30pm bus and had an hour to spare for the next one. So we stocked up on travel munchies and bundled up as much as we could – we learned our lesson from the last bus ride on how cold it could get! I had bought a hoodie sweatshirt from the Juan Valdez coffee shop thinking that would help me even more.
The bus was newer than the last one and seemed more comfortable. It rained all night and the ride was much longer than the one from Bogota to Medellin. It was also twice as cold too – I froze my damn culo off. Juan Valdez failed in his attempt to keep me warm! I had the hoodie on backwards and the hood part over my face while my neck pillow warmed my neck, and it was somewhat doing the job. I didn’t get much sleep at all that night. All I could keep thinking of was how darn cold I was, and thawing out on the sunny beaches of Cartagena. I later found out that we were transporting meat below the bus so they had to keep it extra cold in order for it to not go bad.
In the morning, the rain had stopped, it was still cold inside, and the bus was starting to get really uncomfortable. People were getting off in various towns along the way and that opened a few seats. I moved to the one in front of me and stretched out and tried to sleep a little more. I watched the the countryside through the window, this time the scenery was much more beach like than when we were on our way to Medellin. It was more tropical rather than rainforest like. It was very serene, very untouched, and very picturesque. I fell asleep and woke up just as we were pulling into Cartagena.
