PlanetEye

Sunday, April 27th, 2008

Hang gliding Rio - the video

Brendan

The Global Nomad

Had some issues uploading video earlier but they seem to be solved now. Check it out!

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Thursday, April 24th, 2008

Fly like a bird – Hang Gliding Rio

Brendan

The Global Nomad

There are some crazy pursuits that, more than others, cry out for the right venue. Bog diving, for example, just wouldn’t be the same outside Connemara Loughs. For me it’s always been bungee jumping in New Zealand. It’s not that I haven’t had chances other places, but somehow it just doesn’t seem the same jumping off a crane parked in an amusement park, with nary a bridge in sight.

And so it again seemed one of those times when I returned to Rio hell-bent on jumping off a cliff.

I had tried skydiving—that’s just insane—and bungee jumping was still waiting for my first trip to New Zealand. But hang gliding always struck me as the closest thing to actually flying: no engine. No plane. Hell, you even have wings. And what could be a more poetic, scenic and undeniably cool places to do it than from the dramatic cliffs above Rio de Janeiro, landing among the bikini-clad flesh sea…

Rio’s hang gliding central is São Conrado (aka “pepino”) beach, where a stretch of sand is reserved for the frequent landings. Gliders take off from Pedra Bonita, high above, and on a god day the queue to take off can be 5 or 6 gliders deep.

Costs vary from about 100 US and up, and finding a nut case willing to take you tandem is often as easy as walking Copacabana beach looking slightly unstable. Although it is possible to get cheaper rides this way, it has always seemed prudent to me to pay a little extra for quality when dealing with situations involving potential death. (This is the same logic I applied when renting automatic weapons in Cambodia. So far so good.)

For my first-ever hang gliding experience I chose Just Fly. They were professional and fun, and they even managed to get my acrophobic girlfriend to run off a cliff. Kudos to them.

For an incredible experience you will never forget (especially if you choose the optional CD with photos of your flight from a wing-mounted camera), take the plunge. If her grin afterwards is any indication, it’s even fun for the more sane among us.

Bonus: the typical flight path takes you close to Rocinha, the largest favela (see next post) in Latin America—a bird’s eye view of how millions of poorer Brazilians live. Oh, and you fly over the beach and beautiful mansions as well, but hey, that’s Rio for you.

Just Fly
$144 USD at time of writing for a 10-minute flight

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