on wednesday, K and Skittles took me on a bachelorette adventure. J had leaked that K and he were pitching in together, which i thought meant we were going paragliding, as the parents had bought her a pass for her birthday. K asked and i told her my guess and she informed me i was wrong.

wednesday morning pa dropped Skittles and i off at K's work. her kid showed us his classroom and pa took him- and we climbed into K's car, which had been decorated by Skittle's stepma for our little extravaganza.

en route to wherever we were going, K told me we were going bungee-jumping. immediately, i felt nauseous, and had K pull over as my stomach struggled with that info. i ran into the nearest fast food joint to deal with much sudden durchfall. i was so nervous. not once did i plot on how to get out of doing it- that was the plan, so i was going to go along with it, not matter how much it terrified me.
K let me deal with my upset bowels for 2 hours. oh, the cruelty! 2 minutes away from our destination, she let me know we were actually going paragliding instead. what a world of difference! J asked me later why i was able to skydive but not bungee-jump. very simple. skydiving did not require me to jump off a cliff head-first, relying on a slim nylon cord to keep me from crashing into the earth. plus, once you reach as far as you're going to go, you sort of bob up and down for a bit of time. ugh.
so we made it to the paragliding place and met our instructor in this building filled with harnasses suspended from the ceiling. it was fun bobbing up and down while we chatted.
we got some training, signed our life away,
then headed out for our adventure. we were too late to hike to our destination, so we had to meet up with a packed truck to drive us up to the top. we also got to hike in about a mile carrying our parachutes in these huge mushroom packs on our backs.
about an hour traveling, we finally arrive at our destination. a huge cliff overlooking a loake, city, trees- crazy gorgeous view. we had 3 men with us- our tandems. there was a very attractive ecuadorian, the spacey yet kind owner, and an older guy who was uncomfortably flirtatious with me, despite knowing i was engaged. flirtatious guy jumped off first, so i had Skittles go with him- i couldn't stomach the thought of him putting them moves on me when i couldn't escape. my gift to K was letting her go with the hot guy (her later complaint was that he didn't speak any English).
so Skittles went first. so funny- she screamed as they jumped off.
i thought K was going next, but her ecuadorian wanted to jump up higher. that left me. my guy told me my job was to run as hard as i could. when he gave me the go-ahead, i did- but the wind was strong and i couldn't go anywhere. then the wind picked me up and i was running in the air. he kept yelling at me to run, so i did, even though i wasn't touching the ground. finally i got a good couple steps on the ground and we were airborne.there wasn't that freefall rush, but we sort of glided into the air. the view was of course breathtaking and we skimmed the trees, almost touching them with our toes. we were able to stay in the air over a half hour due to the wind and updrafts. my guide would find one, spin us up through the air, and i'd become nauseous. finally i had to beg him to stop, and we drifted peaceful.
we'd float over to Skittles who was doing spirals with her crazy guy, and then K who was filming everything (that later got erased by her little guy).we finally drifted toward the ground. i opted for a butt landing, as the standing sounded too difficult.

when we got there, the family was waiting for us- B, ma, Skittle's stepma and K (ma's cousin). pa and Skittle's pa were on their way to pick up J at the airport. i guess M and C, friends of ours, had hiked all the way to our jumping off point (a 2 hour hike) only to miss us by a matter of minutes.
another adventure survived.