1247 In "La Pequena Roma de America", Obispo Labbe 682 for bistec a lo pobre. Was going to go to Restaurant 680 as I had a feeling it would do good food of that type but it was shut. May be because it's a holiday today or just too early.
Paragliding was very cool indeed but going to write about it after eating, maybe over a beer if I can find a nice bar.
Oh, fortunately noticed while waiting in reception to be picked up that checkout is 10:30. Cheeky IMO.
1338 Huge portion and excellent. Not sure why - maybe it was the addition of a tomato - but the fried onions had much more flavour than usual. No diet coke though so had to have regular. CLP4.5k, call it 5k with reasonable tip.
1346 Just realised I left my (cloth) hanky in the pocket of the overall thing I was wearing for the paragliding. Bugger.
1405 "Lobo Hombre En Paris" playing at this bar I've come to in Baquedano. Was going to go to place last night but it's shut (probably too early). Will have a beer, just maybe two, write about paragliding and then try to find the bus terminal to book ticket for tomorrow. I am probably going back to La Serena; it's probably a tolerable bus trip and there's lots left to see there.
Schop looks fucking enormous.
Think this is 'Bar Boulevard'.
Anyways, alarm went off at 7 and I checked mail; guy from TF was a good as his word. There was a £15 charge to add paragliding cover and as agreed he had paid that with my card.
Went back to sleep. Didn't want to get up (felt a bit cold, plus I never want to get up) but dragged myself out of bed about 9. Showered, put contacts in etc. Went to lurk in reception about 955.
Felt minor surge of panic at that point, oddly somehow triggered by seeing the checkout time. Anyway, owner woman came in and started talking to me. Turns out they send people to the company I used all the time and know the guys well. She said they'd been using them for three years and there'd not been an accident in that time.
American (possibly Canadian) staff chappy came in too, apparently he had done it solo but not for a year.
Anyway, they picked me up. Three Chileans in the group with me. Guy explained some stuff in Spanish as we drove up to the launching place. I pretty much got most of it and I clarified the missing bits after.
The launch point was at the top of one of the mountains which loom over the town. Felt a bit queasy as we pulled up. Went and looked over the edge but fortunately it wasn't a sheer cliff, more like 45 degrees.
Introduced to my 'pilot' (if that's the right term), Patricio. He spoke a bit of English and we sort of used a mixture. I was obviously a bit nervous at this point but I expected to be shaking and I wasn't. He kept telling me to relax; I have no idea how much that was because I was nervous and how much because I never seem very relaxed anyway.
He helped me put on some sort of suit/overall thing and we went over what happened on takeoff. Basically I had to keep facing towards the edge all the time, be ready to sort of be pulled around and walk in the direction he pulled me, then when we got into the air and he told me to sit down, I had to put my arms sort of behind me and push this seat thing which was dangling loose behind me up to my knees.
Watched quite a few other people take off before we went. When we did, apart from a certain amount of shuffling around, the pilot told me to run towards the edge and I sort of did but could feel myself being lifted up and losing contact with the ground. A second or two later he told me to sit down and that was that.
Absolutely nothing like I'd expected. There is no real sensation of speed; it basically feels like you're just sort of sat there in mid air. The pilot asked me to lean to one side or the other occasionally but basically I just sat there. We did seem to get very close to the mountain at times but I guess that's to pick up the wind being deflected off them.
Except for a couple of times when I got that brief stomach sensation I associate with driving over a hump-backed bridge (and which was probably in my head; I get it sometimes in cars when I see we're approaching a crest in the road) I felt fine the whole time. No sense of panic or anything. Actually about 15-20 minutes in I think I felt or imagined I felt just the tiniest bit sick from the motion. It wasn't very strong and it went away pretty quickly.
Flight lasted, judging from photo timetamps, half an hour. Pilot had tied my camera to the overall thing earlier and I got it out at his suggestion towards the end and snapped five or six photos semi-randomly. I kept one hand on the strap though. :-) ("Me cuesta tanto olvidarte" now). I assume I couldn't have fallen even if I'd wanted to, and I guess this was demonstrated when we came in to land. (I had asked about this before we took off.) Pilot told me to stand up, I might have missed the first time he asked but not sure. I did, which was weird rather than scary (I mean, the seat was sort of attached to me) and I was sort of stood up and I'm not quite sure how that worked. I had been told to sort of treat the landing like going up a step and basically just had to walk a little (clumsily, the two of us being fastened together) along the beach. We landed right on the beach which I'd walked the length of yesterday, not in some reserved area. (The bit at the top was a big open patch signposted for paragliding.)
Actually doing it was so totally non-scary it was unbelievable. Even the takeoff was so quick that I never really got the chance to worry about it. Would absolutely do it again, no question.
Apart from spiralling round a bit (presumably to gain height), we flew along the mountains from the takeoff point, over the city and down to the beach. As we were coming down at the end we flew over the top of a pair of tower blocks maybe only ten or twenty metres above the roofs.
Hands were holding onto the chest straps during takeoff, then during the flight onto these other strap extending above me. It was pretty comfortable actually.
They gave me some gloves and a helmet, and I was wearing my cheapo sunglasses. It was pleasantly cool up there; it was actually a bit of a shock how warm it was back on the ground.
From the beached we walked (crossing a road, which was a bit disturbing as I wasn't super mobile with the overalls on and the seat dangling behind my knees) to some green bit in the middle of the road and waited there to be picked up. The other tour guys didn't want a lift back but I paid (CLP35k) and they took me back, all the staff gabbling away unintelligibly and me just sat there. :-)
Just made some rough estimates of the schop glass size and a quick calculation suggests it must be no more than a half litre. Will have one more and wander over to the bus terminal.
1533 It's hot. Woman at hostel told me other day it never gets over about 23C here. I don't care, it's hot. Am gonna walk up to bus terminal if I can find it, though it's tempting to get a taxi. Will save that for if I can't find it.
1545 Just got bill. CLP4k is a bit pricey but not too bad.
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