I arrived in Cordoba, AR on Monday March 17th, 2008. Cordoba is the second largest city in Argentina and has the largest student population (total of five universities). I decided to visit Cordoba mainly because it was close to La Cumbre, where I wanted to go for my Birthday. Cordoba is only 2 1/2 hours from La Cumbre by micro bus, as a result I could make a day trip to it from Cordoba.
On the night of my arrival in Cordoba, I met up with the two English ladies, I initially met in Cafayate. They met me at my hostel and we went out for steak and wine (or rather a couple bottles of wine and a VERY large steak). During our dinner we decided to meet up in La Cumbre for my B-day and go paragliding. The plan was, the ladies would head up to La Cumbre the day before and i would come up the next morning.
The day before my birthday, I did some sightseeing in Cordoba, I looked at a few churches, parks and people watched. In the evening I chatted with fellow travelers from my hostel. As the night progressed a group-about eight of us decided to go out to dinner to celebrate my b-day. We ended up at the same Parrilla I had gone to the night before….which was quite delicious. At mid-nite each of the hostel mates sang happy b-day in their language to me, as a piece of flan with a candle in it was presented before me. After the dinner, we all went out to a bar to further celebrate…..didn´t get home until 4ish and had to be up to go to La Cumbre at 7am…..UGH, it´s a hard life! Good thing I was only turning 24, which made it far easier to get up so early after a long night out….not like i had just turned thirty-five! 
The next morning I woke up at 7am to take the micro bus to La Cumbre, which is north of Cordoba and has a population of about 7,800. I arrived in La Cumbre at 11ish and the English girls met me at the tourist office at noon. Apparently, the day before the girls had already inquired about paragliding, so they knew where the office was. We headed to the office, but upon arrival the gentleman in the paragliding office informed us that the wind was not going in the right direction. As a result, we would have to check back in a few hours to see if the status had changed. **note** it was very windy that day.
We left the office and decided to have lunch and then head back to the paragliding office in a couple of hours. We had lunch and two bottles of champagne….and went back to the office to check-in. Basically, to make a long story short we checked in two more times after our lunch and finally the guy from the paragliding office said it was a ´go´and we headed up by truck to the cliffs. Once we reached our final destination we had to wait about an hour half more for the winds to slow down……and once they did, I was first to go up, up and away!!
Ok…..not sure how to describe paragliding, but I can tell you this…I thought it would be similar to parasailing (which is when a boat pulls you in the air over water, by parachute). Parasailing is very serene and peaceful. Paragliding on the other hand, is neither serene or peaceful, but rather frightening, very frightening!!! Basically, I had to run off the edge of a cliff with a tiny parachute holding me up. Once I´m off the cliff, nothing lays below me except cliffs and rocks…..not a very secure feeling. To be honest, I was shaking the whole time, the guy in tandem with me, said to me ´you can throw up if you want´. I wasn´t going to throw up, but I was very frightened. What made it worse, he kept doing ´tricks´in the air….I don´t believe I signed up for ´trick´s,´ but i got them anyway.
Overall, it was an amazing experience and a wonderful Birthday….I will definitally remember it! I may even possible paraglide again in the future. I know i had mentioned in previous posts I wanted to go skydiving…..well I still do and plan to. But, their ´specialty´ in La Cumbre is paragliding, so I opted for it instead.
