Lost And Searching: Pereira - Canopy & Paragliding

Our hostel was recommended by Papa Brunch in Salento and I have to say itbis the nicest hostel 'till now! Kolibri hostel is very charming, clean and the people at the reception help you with everything, in English!

The city itself didn't have very luch to offer for me personally. I like small charminng cities, but the ones out here are all very big and not so charming...

So we decided to do adventurous stuff outside the city! There weren't a lot of options, but we picked the most adventurous ones.

Only one hour away from Pereira is a small town, called Alcalá. To go to Bosque de Saman, it's best you take a taxi, since it's a steep way, all the way!

We had the 2 most friendly guides, helping us to gear up. They didn't speak any English, aside from a few words. All the instructions came through pretty clear, I managed to translate a little to my friends. My Spanish is getting better by the day, 'cause I always try to say everything in Spanish, even if it's a struggle!

The 'canopy' itself was not that extreme, it didn't give me the adrenaline kick I was looking for, but we had lots of fun!

[ I've accidentally reset my camera and lost the photos and videos of the canopy - oops! ]

After the canopy, there was an optional 'part 2', a monkey rope bridge - as I like to call it. Now thát was something different, a full body workout!

After this hard work we treated ourselves with a beer or in my case with a refajo (beer + soda). Cheers!

To get back to the center of the town, to take a bus back to Pereira, you could do it by foot. It's pretty much always a descend and the views are amazing!

1,5 hours away from Pereira, you can find the charming town Apia. Around the main square you can find restaurants, bars, shops, basically all we needed while waiting for the wind to turn into the right direction for paragliding.

At 10.30 our pilots came to pick us up with a jeep. We had 3 choices: we could sit either in the front of the jeep, in the back (on the parachutes) or on top of the jeep. If you know us just a little by now, you just know...

It was a very bumpy ride! 4 days later I still have a bruise on my b**. The view was again picturesque!

Once we were on top of the mountain we were going to run off, our pilots started to prepare the equipment. It gave us a little time to mentally prepare for running off a mountain and to take some pictures of the valley below us.

The flight was sooooo cool! At a certain point in time we went so high that I was literally with my head in the clouds! When we were starting to make our descend, my pilot asked me if I wanted to spin. Hell yeah! It will be able to feel g-force, he told me. This is so far the coolest thing I've did on this trip!