Today's major event: hang gliding. I knew it was easy to book hang gliding in Rio, so on a whim, I called a hang gliding operation we found in a Rio guidebook and scheduled two tandem glides. The wind and weather in Rio are such that gliding is possible an average of 3 out of 4 days year round. Given that this was our last day in Rio, we were taking a chance.
A driver swung by our guesthouse at 10:00am and we were whisked off to the Pedra Bonita Ramp high up in the Tijuca Forest.
A short hike up the rest of the mountain and we were at our launch point.
One problem: clouds. The wind was going the right direction, but without visibility, the gliders don't go. Thus, it became a waiting game.
We took the time to snap a few pictures of us in our harnesses.
When you tandem glide, the run is the most important part for the passenger. You need to get up a good amount of speed before there's nothing left under your feet to propel you forward. My pilot and I practiced a few times while we waited for the clouds to clear.
Finally the clouds cleared, and we could see land! In particular we could just make out the hazy outline of the São Conrado beach, our landing strip. Ming was the first to go.
When the wind is just right, the pilot yells "Run! Run! Run!" With that, Ming's in the air. From under the wooden ramp, I snapped a shot of her first few seconds in the air:
We were allowed to carry our own cameras. Each glider had a camera attached to the wing.
So we were able to catch the action.
Next it was my turn. We tested out our in-flight stance:
Another "Run! Run! Run!" and I was off. The first drop off is supposed to be the scariest part, but I didn't really notice. I was too fixated on the beauty of the Rio coastline phasing into full view as we glided out of the cloud.
You might notice that I'm holding my expensive new expensive camera in that last shot. Don't worry, the strap was around my neck. So in addition to the wing-view...
I was able to capture a little bit of what it looked like from my perspective.
But really, the full view from the sky can't be captured by pictures -- it's truly a bird's eye view of the world. No distracting motor sounds. Just the wind, and a few narrative comments from the pilot. The only cooler flying experience I could imagine would be going solo... but I would need a lot more training before I could control one of those things.
Our flights lasted about ten minutes. Ming was on the ground a few minutes before me. She was still smiling, but apparently her ride was quite a bit bumpier than mine. "Roller coaster style belly cartwheels," she said. Thus, she was feeling a little queasy. Meanwhile, I was wondering if we could fit more hang gliding into the Peru portion of the trip.
Regardless, we both successfully completed our first hang-glide flights!
After resting for a bit, we headed out for our final sight of Rio: Sugar Loaf Mountain. We started with a little walk around Urca, a quiet little village with colonial mansions and a small beach.
This is the one place in Rio where it's safe to carry a camera out in the open, so we took a lot of random pictures.
We spotted the mango trees that the guidebook pointed out to us. They looked good, but it was a little high to climb.
A shot of the beach in the distance.
The sun began to set...
So we headed over to the Sugar Loaf cable car.
We picked up some corn on the cob from a street vendor we saw on the way.
There were actually two cable cars that take you all the way to the top of Sugar Loaf. The first stops about halfway. Yeah, yeah, I know you can hike it. We were just under the clouds at this point.
In what seemed a bit like deja vu, we were again on top of a mountain with nothing but clouds and mist around us. As you can see, clouds in Brazil aren't much different than the clouds in South Africa... at least when you're in the middle of them.
After about 15 minutes, we headed back down to the halfway point where they sold popsicles. Fruitara popsicles to be exact, Ming's favorite food-find in Rio.
We took a few last snapshots from the halfway point and then headed back to the guesthouse.
The only trick was informing our prearranged taxi at Cusco of our new arrival time. I think we threw them for a bit of a loop, because the taxi was about 20 minutes late picking us up. From Cusco airport we drove to Ollantaytambo.
Lots of stray dogs seem to roam these areas.
The day was overcast, so we were a little worried about what the weather had in store for us.
Our guesthouse (Hostel Sauce), made us feel right at home. They served us Coca tea, and had flowers waiting for our honeymoon.
The view from our room overlooked some Incan ruins.
Ignoring all warnings about avoiding over-exerting yourself when you arrive in a high-altitude area, we decided to climb the ruins.
You can see the whole town from the top.
As it was getting dark, we descended into a tourist trap... I mean market.
Today we escaped with all our Soles intact. I'm sure we won't be so lucky in the future.
