Up, that's where I'm headed

As a rule, ever since I've become an "adult" I gift myself something for my birthday. A good excuse to make an indulgent purchase? Perhaps. This year, I had to wait a couple of weeks for the gift I truly wanted. I think you'll agree that it was worth the wait...

A few months back I met a friend of my neighbor's at a dinner. His name is Sten; and Sten's passion is parapente, or in English, paragliding. It's not often that you meet someone who has a school in the sky, of sorts. So when my birthday rolled around I took the opportunity to call Sten and see if I could celebrate entry into a new decade in the sky. He agreed, it was a great idea.

We drove out southwest of Oaxaca toward Zaachila, a small community about 35-45 minutes from the city. There, we met with four of Sten's parapente pals, and former students (Sten and his buddy have a parapente school here in Oaxaca; I absolutely recommend it for anyone passing through town). We pile our gear into the back of the pick up and drive further up hill towards the take-off site.
We can only drive so far up hill before we have to ditch the car and hike it. I'm lucky, and only have to heft my helmet, water and camera. Whereas the other guys are toting an entire parachute, harness, radios, etc on their backs up windy dirt roads.


Uh huh, totally beautiful. It's almost a prerequisite for parapente, as the weather needs to be mostly, clear with wind to even bother. But I think we were blessed with a particularly gorgeous morning. I tell Sten that I made a call and ordered this sun and blue skies.

Sten, and nothin' but sky...

Sten readies the shoot on the hillside we will leap from. You can see the valley below. I should mention that I'm, of course, riding tandem with Sten; no solo flights just yet. I get a quick lesson about take-off; bend my knees, lean forward, stay with him (since we're harnessed together, it kind of essential), and run my butt off when he yells to do so.

Yo, I look hot!

I'm pretty bundled up, even though the sun is streaming; the temperature drops quite a bit once you are swimming in the clouds. Sten straps me into the harness--I'm riding in front of him. Luis helps lift the chute so the wind will inflate the silk. I feel the heavy tug, and get dragged back a bit, shuffling my feet as instructed. And then Sten yells, "Corre" and I take off running forward, straight off the hillside. But not three steps later, the earth pulls away from my soles, and I find myself bicycling my feet in the air. And then, this...



I have few words for the experience. It's hard to appropriately describe being 6,000 feet above sea level, legs dangling, cold air rushing past your face, riding thermals up into the clouds, Sten's music softly playing from a small radio. I hardly spoke for the hour we played in the sky; I was too overwhelmed with how beautiful. The others played around us, searching out their own pockets of hot air to take them further and higher. Sometimes they were close enough to toss a baseball. Other times they floated far off in the distance.

Sten knocked on my helmet, making sure I hadn't passed out. I told him I just couldn't talk. He seemed to understand exactly. Time came to land when we ran out of available thermals. Sten spotted a piece of field nearby that looked promising. So, my lesson on landing procedure came a few minutes before doing just that. It sounded similar, bend my knees, run once I hit the ground, stay with the chute. Unfortunately, as the ground raced towards us we found zero wind to help put the brakes on, and so we landed with considerable speed. However, the landing zone was well-picked, and mostly soft. The tall weeds came up to my arm pits where we hit done--so running was near impossible--and we both just flopped over instantly. Sten, ticked on my helmet, asking if I was okay, no twisted bones of joints due to impact. I felt great! Inside my helmet, the bumpy landing was more fun than anything else. It was sort of like the way you can throw yourself around in snow or sand without too much concern.


Our parapente makes a huge impression in the weeds. Sten compares it to crop circles supposedly left by aliens in the wheat fields of the States. We work to fold up the chute and re-pack it in the backpack. Sten calls out "Espere!" as he wants to get a shot of me, wading in the weeds with the chute. "A memory of your birthday," he says.

We hike it out of the field and toward the main road. Another key element to landing, is to try to end up somewhere near a highway or drive so that the person in charge of the truck can make it to you for pick-up. Sten tells me about a time he landed just off course of a forest and had to hike for 3 hours to make it to the nearest road. I can't imagine--these packs are huge!

When we make it to the truck, two other flyers are already there waiting (plus, Luis, who was in charge of driving the car from the hillside where we left, back down to the valley where we landed), and a few others who didn't fly today, but saw us in the air and came out for the after "party." Apparently, the best thing to chase a high altitude fly with is a couple of chelas (beers)!

The parapente guys

We retire to a nearby restaurant in towards Zaachila village. Now that the beers and mezcal are open, the parapente horror stories are coming out. It's really a pretty safe pastime, especially compared to things like driving a car, statistically-speaking. I think they avoided talks of this kind before I took off. But now that I'm safely back on ground with a huge smile on my face, the regale me with talks of people caught in storm clouds, or who's feet got tripped up under them on landing. I'm feeling lucky.

Eventually it's time to pack it up. Sten invites me to a casual party out in Etla at his ex-wife's place. I snack on cake, have a beer and chat with some fellow ex-pats. I play frisbee with their hoard of bilingual children, who freely exchange between Spanish and English throughout the game. And finally we watch the sun set over the valley and hillside. It's an unbelievable sky; I ordered well this morning. It's a birthday present to myself to rival all others...