You Need My Bloodtype?

*Note:  There are still no pictures here because the user interface is now in Portuguese - which I can barely order cerveza in, so "upload photo" is a little beyond me.  I'll hopefully be able to update all of these posts with photos from South Africa, unless of course the user interface is then in Afrikaans or !xosa or something which would only be progressively worse...

December 19 - 21

Buenos Aires is a different city by the light of a weekday.  The parks that had been filled with vendors hawking their wares and couples lounging on the grass on Sunday were deserted on Monday and had been replaced with streets full of cars, buses and trucks.

Monument to Evita

We spent Monday morning and afternoon fighting the crowds to get to Recoleta to see the many monuments in the parks there, including the monument for Evita.   We pushed our way through layers of people headed to and from work while trying to avoid the constant dripping of the window air conditioners above us.  We quickly learned to stand back from the corner while waiting for the little green guy to pop up on the other side of the street in order to keep from swallowing mouthfuls of exhaust fumes as cars raced by, honking at cars and pedestrians alike to get out of their way.

We got to experience life as a local Argentinian when we decided to stop for stamps for our postcards.  The post office (which is apparently the only place you can buy stamps in Argentina), looks like a DMV office in the U.S.  You take a number and then sit and wait to be called up to the next available window.  Fortunately for us, the Argentinian postal service is marginally faster than the DMV and so we only waited half an hour or so for the 14 people in front of us to be cycled through so that we could purchase our postcard sized stamps.  By the time we managed to attach the required stamps and write in the recipient's addresses, we had enough room to write notes that went something like this, "Can't write much.  Stamps too big.  Having a good time.  Love, N y M."

Monday night we joined our friends Nathan and Chloe who were also visiting Buenos Aires from Australia at a show called La Bomba del Tiempo.  It's done on Monday nights at the Cuidad Cultural Konex.  It's several hours of tribal sounding percussion music and the entire outdoor venue is filled with an eclectic group of dreadlocked wannabe hippies, roaming travelers like ourselves and local celebrities.  Drinks are served by the liter if you're drinking beer, and by the bottle if you're drinking wine.  Either way, they are poured into massive plastic cups in order to ensure that there isn't any broken glass on the concrete floor as dancers move to the intoxicating beat.  It's definitely a fun night if you happen to be in BA on a Monday.

Monday turned out to be a late one...  Needless to say, I spent yesterday fighting a bit of a headache as I crammed my stuff into my bag in an effort to pack for Rio as quickly as possible.  Planning to get to the airport early, we started trying to hail a cab more than an hour before we really needed to.  After 40 minutes of wandering around with our massively heavy bags trying to get a cab to even stop for us, we tried calling for one only to have the taxi company call us back a few minutes later to say THEY were having a hard time getting a cab to come to us.  Apparently airport fares are not popular ones.  We tried to hail one for ourselves again, were asked to pay 3 times the normal fare and when we didn't have the money, almost lost a few toes with how quickly the driver took off.  We did finally manage to find a guy who was both willing to take us to the airport and would use the meter.

After lots of fun mix ups at the airport and whole new boarding passes to a direct flight on a different airline (by then we were just hoping to see our bags at some point before South Africa) we managed to make it to Rio de Janeiro (with our bags!!!) around 1 am this morning.

We asked the front desk after breakfast about hang gliding and found out we could be picked up in 30 minutes.  We rushed to change into hang gliding appropriate clothes and shoes and met our driver in the lobby.  The ride was fairly uneventful, but getting to the office where you sign your life away was just plain nuts.  There were probably 30 tourists and pilots all crammed into a little office with 10 computers lined up on either side of the room.  The linoleum floors made the excited chatter turn into a deafening echo as people filled out the online form.  Seriously?  You want my bloodtype?  umm...really? In all my experience signing my life away, I've never had anyone ask for my bloodtype as a required response.  Mom, I'm sure you're glad again that I told you after I did this... And by the way, what exactly IS my bloodtype???

After successfully completing my paperwork, we jumped in back of a Volkswagon Golf with an 8 meter (I'm practicing using the metric system) long rolled up hang glider strapped to the top.  From there we pretty much drove straight up the side of a mountain to the launch site.

The launch site was almost as chaotic as the office below with some pilots helping students into harnesses while others practiced running alongside their tandem fliers.  Within minutes we were harnessed and strapped into the gliders next to our pilots.  After watching one or two takeoffs in front of me, it was my turn.  I didn't even have time to be nervous about running down a ramp that ended with me continuing to run as my feet left the ground.  Seven steps later and we were airborne.

It was one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had.  There is no sense of falling.  No adrenaline rush, just calm and the most amazing sense of what it must be like to have wings.  For 10 minutes I soared above Rio trying to absorb everything from the feeling of the wind on my face to the smell of the ocean below to the sight of Christ the Redeemer towering over the city.  Far too soon the flight was over and we were hurtling toward the beach at what seemed like far too fast a pace.  My pilot reached down and unhooked one of my legs so it was hanging, prepared to continue running onto the ground, as though I had never stopped when we left the platform above.  Moments later, we were on the ground running to a stop.