Paragliding in Rio de Janeiro

This is what happens when you drink too many Caipirinhas in the bar of an evening. Sara, one of the sighted members of our group had said that she was thinking of going paragliding and Gill, one of the VIs, said she fancied doing it as well. I’d tried on a couple of other holidays to go but the wind had got up too much so I thought “The weather’s lovely, so this is my chance”.

The next day we were driven up the hill to the launch site, our ears popping as we climbed. By the time we reached the top, I’d somehow be volunteered to be the first to go as I was, apparently, the least nervous. I definitely didn’t feel that way.

I stood on the ramp at the top of the cliff and was strapped into the harness, in front of the pilot. Looking over the edge, I could see a lovely light blue, virtually cloudless, sky, a beautiful deeper blue sea, and far, far below me, a thin jagged white line marking where the sea was crashing into the cliff: we were far to high to hear the breakers below us. To my left the line straightened out to define one edge of a strip of gold, defined on its other side by the green of the hills behind it, our ultimate target.

So, we jogged down the ramp, feeling the resistance of the canopy as it began to fill with air: we reached the edge and jumped. We sailed around with just the rushing of the wind in the rigging and canopy, seeing the white line resolve itself into the breakers crashing into the rocks at the bottom of the hill that we’d jumped from. And then a few passes along the surf-line until finally we landed on the soft golden sand.

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