If You Stop We Will Die

Driving up a most narrow road with tree branches pounding the car as the driver continues beeping in order to notify downhill drivers of our presence, I start to pray. Am I really going to do this? We reach the summit and prepare ourselves - a bit crash course - which can be summed up with six words IF YOU STOP WE WILL DIE...

I take his words into serious consideration and start focusing really hard. I grab onto my guides straps and walk onto the platform. Stomach in knots - no real preparation time before he yells GO!

I sprint as hard as I can eyes completely on the horizon - if you look down you may stop - all of a sudden there is no more platform left and the massive green and white wings take over as we cut through the clouds over the entire city of RIO. The favella that I visited this morning holding over 200,000 people was on my left, beaches below, ocean in front, rainforest to my right and the wind is whizzing by at astronomical forces. I perch my arms out like a bird. We are so high, I can see helicopters and birds below. When was the last time you were on top of the birds flying - seeing their wings from above.

Its an incredible feeling and breathing in the air as we turn hard toward the ocean. Denario describes to me all that I can see including the mansions on the cliffs with their gynormous pools. Im starting to get a little fear of heights. All the straps hooked into me are really pulling and it feels that at any moment, someone is going to cut the cords. 15 minutes later he notifies me that we will be landing. Of course, there is a sudden extreme speed up directly toward the beach sand shores. Where are the brakes? Whistling in for our landing the sand seems to be moving faster than the landing strip at an airport. All of a sudden, he pulls out my straps and my feet go dangling as we come to a complete stop with my feet planted in the sand. WOW! Can we please do it again!

Handgliding over Rio - how many people can say that! I wanted to do this on my birthday but choosing a day with the right wind and sun conditions makes it all the worth waiting.

Pics of me actually in the air are on a disk that I bought but of course no disk option in the internet cafe. I will post it as soon as I can!

Tomorrows post: Walking in the Favellas with Machettes - this happened before handgliding, but I had to skip to the juice!