With the end of my current travel adventure in sight, I realized that it was time to do some serious prioritizing to really squeeze the maximum amount of fun out of my remaining days in Argentina. I arrived in Córdoba from Salta, where I’d done a whole lot of nothing apart from eating delicious food and drinking wine (which, if I’m being honest, is kind of the whole reason I’m in this country in the first place) which I was perfectly content with, but it left me re-energized and ready for something a bit more adventurous.
Córdoba is a lively city with a huge student population and a striking resemblance to New York City, minus the fact that on weekends it transforms into a ghost town during the day while the residents take refuge indoors until the unbearable afternoon heat has subsided. People awaken from their siestas and businesses start to reopen their doors generally after 6pm.
As part of my prioritizing, I allowed myself 4 days and 3 nights to get to know Córdoba before moving on to my next desination (Mendoza, Buenos Aires and Iguazu Falls would take up the rest of my days). I got my fill of exploring the city on foot; I took in a few sights including the seriously impressive cathedral, Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, the maze-like shopping centers, and a modern art museum. I wandered the weekend artisenal market, antiques stores, art and design shops and hipster beer gardens of Calle Belgrano.
The aforementioned, being strictly evening activities, left my days wide open and rife with possibilities. I needed to up the ante after my relaxing week in Salta, so after a few hours of nervous, sweaty-palmed deliberation on my 2nd day, I settled on the activity ANY sane person would choose–jumping out of a moving fucking airplane.
I’ve had the desire to go skydiving for several years now, and Córdoba offered it for a downright bargain of a price (with my ‘blue market’ exchange rate of 11 Argentinian pesos to the dollar) so it felt like the perfect opportunity (and, you know, ¿por qué no?).
Anyway, I won’t bore you with too many details…I’m sure you can imagine my emotions as my Dutch friend and I were instructed on how to stabilize during free-fall, watching the two before us plummet through the blue sky as miniscule little specks, loading into the rickety little plane to ascend to 3000 meters above the safe, safe ground, hyperventilating as the door flung open and realizing that no, there is no turning back, and gazing out over the horizon and grinning uncontrollably (once the screaming stopped) as the wind whipped my skin around in ways I never knew it could.
And in case you can’t imagine how all that felt (and at the risk of sounding uber-American), allow me to summarize: It. Was. AWESOME.
And since a picture is worth a thousand words, I’ll let these ones (taken with the handy GoPro strapped to my tandem instructor’s wrist) do the rest of the talking–try not to judge my flappy face skin too harshly (and if you ever want a REALLY good laugh, ask me to show you the video).
I loved my first time skydiving. Would you jump out of a perfectly good airplane for fun?
