mrmiah

The last few weeks have been a regular symphony of activities,
experiences, sights and ideas. The people i´ve befriended in Lima are
definitely the highlight. They have opened up new opportunities that
wouldn´t have been possible for the average tourist. At this stage
it´s not like i´m visiting Peru anymore, it´s like I live here. I
walk down the beach and run into people i know, i go to the coffee
shop and see people i´ve partied with, I visit the corner market
nearly every day for a fresh mango or pineapple. I know how to argue
with the taxi drivers and get a fair rate. I still have no idea what
i´m ordering half the time at restaurants, but as long as it´s under 5
soles i don´t really care. The culture here is very friendly. You
greet girls with a kiss and guys with a hearty handshake. People
remember you and go out of their way to include you in activities.
Granted there are girls with alterer motives, but any girl gold
digging with me is bound to be severely disappointed.

So Paragliding really has been one of the main focuses of the trip,
even for me. I´ve managed to get in seven solo flights in two
different locations. All have been incredible, but one was simply
magical. We had a group of seven go camping to a private beach 150 km
south of Lima. To the west of the beach was a gigantic sand dune that
terminated in cliffs near the bottom. One evening, as the sun was
setting, we drove up the backside of the dune and hiked to point that
overlooked our campsite and the ocean six hundred feet below.

I laid out my glider and carefully cleared all the lines. The wind
was really light so it required a forward running launch to get your
wing inflated. The sand under my feet was turning a golden color and
the ocean was bathed in pink and peach that melted into the fiery sky.
This was my first launch at this site and my first forward launch
ever. I was pretty nervous and excited to make this thing happen.
Andy said go and i started running, pulling my A-risers up with me as
i felt the resistance on the wing increase. At just the right moment
i let go of the risers, caught the brakes and applied some pressure so
the wing wouldn´t out-fly me and send me tumbling down the hill. The
next sensation was weightlessness as i left the hill and really
realized just how high I was. I flew out away from the hill and to
the edge of the ocean below and did some turns bobbing on the cool
breeze like a puff of duck down. A few minutes later I landed just
about as softly with a giddy grin that could be seen through my whole
body. Magical. I stood by myself on the edge of the ocean watching
the sky turn to maroon, and the maroon turn to black, all the while
thanking God for blessing me with such a wonderful opportunity.

That was just one of the highlights of that three day camping weekend
with friends. Jose is developing his own paramotor craft. It´s
basically a triangle shaped buggy that carries two (one in front of
the other) with a powerful engine on the back and a propeller that
provides forward thrust to keep the paragliding canopy pressurized.
He´s trying to break the world altitude record and this was the
shakedown flight for this design. The motor is so powerful that it
can literally fly the craft so far out in front of the wing (like a
pendulum) that the wing stalls to the rear, collapses and you fall out
of the sky. Not good. I´ll have pictures soon so hopefully that will
clear up my poor description.

Anyway, I had the third ride on this thing with adjustments being made
on the two preceding flights. As i strapped myself into the craft
Jose says "You know this is a prototype right? You know this is an
untested design right? You know this is the third world right?"
Righteo, lets go! He hits the gas, this thing rockets forward over
some bumpy ground and absolutely shoots into the air. Holy God! It
pitched on it´s side, Jose corrects it and levels things off, we make
some turns and head out to the beach. We skimmed over the ocean at
about 20 feet over seeing everything close up and then decided to
climb. Even using only 60% of the throttle this thing gains altitude
at a dizzying rate. We gained probably four thousand feet in a wink.
Wow. The sights from that high were incredible. The feeling of being
so completely exposed and dangling from threads of Kevlar was even
better. But all was not well in the land of paramotoring......

As we returned to the landing sight I noticed the front wheel between
my feet looked a little askew. I leaned up and pushed on it. Oh
Shit.... The wheel moved forward about four inches, i pulled it back
and realized we had broken the front wheel strut on take off. I
elbowed Jose and showed him the wheel. I just heard "ohh shit, we
gonna crash" in a Peruvian accent.

Paramotors have to land like a plane with a lot of forward speed, and
like a plane there is only one front wheel. The difference is that
there is no canopy over the passengers, and if the the front breaks
off and digs into the ground the whole things flips forward with me
being the fulcrum of the impact. I debated whether i should take off
my seat belt and try to jump or get thrown clear if it started to
flip, or try to stay with the craft and hope it pitched far enough
over to land on the engine. I´m glad i didn´t have to find out. Jose
did a good job of landing hard on the back, the front slammed down
pretty hard and buckled completely under, but the rear wheel landing
absorbed lots of the force, and front wheel stayed attached. Phew!!
Somebody upstairs must like me.

There are tons more stories, everything from driving in a place where
the #1 rule is the person with the most inertia wins to kissing girls
in dance clubs, to visiting the most exclusive private club/beach in
Peru (only important people and their guests; good to have friends in
high places), to cratering myself skateboarding, and many other topics
of silliness and insanity. I cant write forever, but I´ll stop here.

In a handful of days we are rolling out of Lima and heading either to
Chile to a crazy flying site, or to Cuzco in Peru so we can spend a
week hiking the Sacred Valley up to Machu Picchu . I´m looking
forward to leaving the city and seeing the country.

Sorry this is so long, but thanks everyone for keeping up with me and
thanks for all the notes. I deeply appreciate you all.

miah