Sitting in the familiar surroundings of my father's house in northern New Jersey, on a cold fall day on the day before thanksgiving, I am experiencing familiar post-travel feelings. Did the last three weeks really happen, or were they just an incredible dream? Did I really float through a cloud in Colombia only the day before yesterday? Am I really going to spend the next 2 years in the Peace Corps in Guatemala? It is normal for my trips to form somewhat incongruous gaps in my “normal” life, but my experiences over the last three weeks have been so different from the preceding months, the direction of my life changed so drastically, that I can't help but wonder whether they really happened.

I arrived in Medellín, Colombia in the late morning, after a direct flight from New York, with some of the same feelings I am again experiencing now. Had I been among Manhattan's skyscrapers only a matter of hours earlier, only to again be surrounded on all sides by the truly skyscraping Andes mountains?

After checking into my hostel, I encountered the first of many pleasant surprises of the trip while checking my e-mail. I had received a message from a Peace Corps placement officer with a formal invitation to a project in Guatemala! As I read about my assignment spending the next 2 years working in rural schools facilitating basic health and hygiene projects, tears came to my eyes. I truly could not have asked for a more perfect fit. It seems very similar to the work I did with the Peace Corps in Peru last summer, an experience I absolutely loved. I will get extensive experience in the areas of both education and health care, arguably the two most important challenges for developing countries. I will get to work with children and parents, teachers and school administrators, as well as government officials in the ministry of education. I will get to play around with kids (using experiential methods such as games and songs is in the job description) while hopefully teaching them skills and habits which will benefit not just their lives, but the lives of their family and community over the course of many years. I will get to live and work in rural areas and experience a way of life fundamentally different from my own in a way my prior relatively short-term trips could have never allowed. Finally, I will receive extensive professional training from the Peace Corps in various areas such as educational methodologies, public health, the technical and theoretical aspects of development, and working with people from different cultures. It is my hope that following my service, this training and experience will lead me back to school for a post-graduate degree and career in some aspect of international development.

I hadn't expected to receive an invitation for several weeks at least, and my assignment will begin in early January of 2009, over a month sooner than I was expecting to depart. Going from sitting on my mom's couch bored less than a week earlier to preparing for the Peace Corps while in Colombia, my to-do list was rapidly expanding. Nonetheless, as excited as I was about my prospects for the next two years, I was also faced with the reality of being in Colombia for the next three weeks without having made any plans (I had only bought the ticket a few days prior in the first place).

I had read that Medellín was an excellent location for paragliding, and a very inexpensive place to learn, so I decided to take a tandem flight to try it out. The next morning, I took a bus up into the mountains overlooking Medellín for my first flight. As I ran with my pilot Alejandro down the runway (a grassy field at the top of a mountain), the glider inflated and my legs were lifted off the ground. My first sensations of flying, the ground sinking beneath my feet, wind rushing by my face, suspended in a harness underneath the enormous piece of fabric, was unlike anything I'd ever experienced before in my life. The minor movements in the wind were terrifying at first, as was a glance towards the rapidly changing ground. Nonetheless, I made an effort to slow my breathing and relax, enjoying the scenery and the experience of flying with the birds. After about 15 minutes we touched down in a small field far below. I knew immediately that this was a sport I wanted to pursue and decided to dedicate my time in Colombia to taking a paragliding course.

The next day I took the trip back up to the “voladero” (literally Spanish for “flying place) where I began my lessons. I learned the fundamental principals of lifting the glider off the ground and positioning it over your head for a launch, a feat which at first glance looks easy. I practiced for an hour or so with some success, but was forced to stop as more and more people began arriving on the field. It was a beautiful Sunday, a day that I was to learn was when all the local pilots come out to fly. People from the area come with blankets and tents to hang out and enjoy the spectacular scenery while watching the free show of gliders gracefully dancing in the sky. There is a small shack that serves grilled meat and local Colombian dishes. The enormous speakers blasting American 80s pop across the entire valley is the perfect ingredient for a great party.

My practice space was quickly taken over by spectators, and as paragliders continued taking off and landing around my head I decided to give up and enjoy the show. I turned my gaze out across the valley where half a dozen gliders joined the birds in spiraling around what I would later learn was a thermal current. Columns of rising warm air, thermal currents are a paraglider's elevator and can carry skilled pilots high up into the clouds. Other pilots cruised closer to the mountain, riding like surfers on waves of air called “dynamics”, the result of wind hitting against the side of a mountain and being forced skyward—carrying anything in its path along for the ride.

I watched in amazement at the aerial feats performed with such apparent casualness. A high flying pilot would abruptly drop towards the ground in a quick spiral, rotating around the glider at a nearly horizontal angle, relying on the centrifugal force of the rotation to keep the soft canopy from collapsing. In an even more daring maneuver known as “tumbling”, the pilot does a series of sharp turns before forcefully swinging himself up in the air, bringing his upside down body completely over the canopy before “tumbling” back down, again relying solely on centrifugal force to prevent collapse. And then there's the “giro de la muerte”, the “turn of death”, in which the bold pilot plays a game of chicken with the ground to see how low a dive he can perform. On two or three occasions I witnessed a pilot actually manage to grace the ground with his wing for a split second before catching wind and shooting back skyward. Other pilots used the rising wind near the edge of a cliff to hover motionless in the air, slightly lowering the controls to slowly descend to the ground, only to jump back up again and fly away like a superhero. The most terrifying event I saw was a “full stall” (pronounced in Spanish “eh-fool eh-stole”, in which the airflow across the wing is entirely stopped, lift completely disintegrates, and the glider begins sinking like a stone. On the occasion that I witnessed it, the stall only lasted for a few seconds before the airflow was restored and the pilot regained control—I believe the stall was induced by the pilot for the free fall effect it causes, but I can't be entirely sure. I didn't actually see anyone need to throw open their emergency parachute, but was told that it happens from time to time.

With the mixture of incredible stunts, cute girls and 80s music, it felt like I was in a “Top Gun”esque montage. As I watched pilot after pilot fly with such incredible agility and precision, I longed for the day that I'd be able to take to the air on my own.

My instructors, brothers Andrés and Alejandro, introduced me into the local paragliding community, people who reminded me quite a bit of the adventurous, fun loving but also hard working types that become ski enthusiasts. Also like in the skiing community, most of the pilots were men, but I also met a handful of female pilots, most of whom were young, beautiful, and fearless. Hanging out with these fun Colombianas made me begin scheming how and when I'd be able to come back to Medellín for a longer trip next time.

The following days were not nearly as much fun. During the week, the voladero converts back into just another field at the top of just another mountain, and my only companions during my training were my instructors and the occasional sheep. I spent the better part of a week practicing the takeoff sequence (without the reward of actually taking off, of course), which proved to be considerably more difficult and frustrating than it had at first glance. The goal is to run and lift the suspension lines so that the canopy inflates with air and positions directly over your head while you are moving forward, thus creating lift and allowing you to take off. There are countless parts of the procedure which must be integrated perfectly into one fluid motion, and time after time I would put my concentration on one aspect and in the process forget to do something else. The wind, as I quickly learned, is one of the most fundamental factors a pilot must account for, particularly during take-off, and learning was far more difficult during days where there was anything other than a gentle headwind. For each failed attempt, I would need to collect the glider, carry it back up the hill, position it carefully on the ground, untangle the suspension, and go through the actual launch technique of trying to run and lift the glider into the air. It was far more physical than I had imagined, and I soon had bruises on both arms from the repetitious motion.

On my second or third day of training, on one of the rare occasions when I actually got the glider properly into position I found myself running towards the edge of the runway. I stopped well before the edge, but realized that until that moment I had not truly considered the implications of my decision to learn to paraglide. One of these days, in the not too distant future, I would be expected to continue the motion I had been doing and jump off the side of a mountain. I was a bit perturbed by the thought.

My instructors were not always gentle. When I would forget to do something, or position the lines incorrectly, or make some other mistake, they would repeatedly point out my error and ask me why I had done the task wrong after they had already shown me how it was done. They would remind me of the serious nature of the sport and the need to concentrate. The fact that they didn't speak more than a word of English here and there did not help matters either, as my Spanish vocabulary is not perfect and my ability to process commands in Spanish takes a bit longer. The progress I initially made seemed to disappear as I got more tired and frustrated, and by the end of the week I found myself thinking about all the other things I could be doing with my vacation in Colombia and wondering if this decision had been a mistake.

After several days I took a day off in order to make a trip to the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá in order to apply for a special Peace Corps passport. I hadn't known that I'd need a special passport, and since my service was to begin so soon I wouldn't have time to wait until I got back to the U.S. to apply. The only hurdle was the distance—10 hours by bus from Medellín to Bogotá. I got on a bus around 9 P.M. and traveled throughout the night, unable to get more than a quick nap here and there due to the dubbed Jackie Chan movies, and later the blaring Colombian music which played through the night on the overhead speakers. The curvy mountain roads didn't help much either, and I suppose it was a good thing that I couldn't see the roads and accompanying steep abysses down the mountainsides through the dark. I did, however, see quite a few soldiers in the passing light of the bus, patrolling the roadside and manning checkpoints with automatic weapons close at hand. They, along with the highly visible military presence throughout Medellín, were evidence of the ongoing war which is still being fought with leftist guerrillas throughout much of the country. Despite the soldiers I saw, the parts of the country I traveled in are considered very safe, and I never feared for my personal security at all during my trip.

Upon my arrival at the bus station in Bogotá the next morning, I took a cab directly to the U.S. Embassy, where I went through a series of security checkpoints before arriving at the citizen consular services office where I presented my passport application. The local Colombian embassy staff seemed confused by my request. I wasn't sure if they even knew what the Peace Corps was. They gave me a different application to fill out before again changing their mind and deciding that the original one was correct, and they couldn't make up their mind about whether I needed to pay a fee or not. I was a bit worried until the chief consul came out and asked me in a friendly and casual American accent where my Peace Corps assignment was. It turns out he had been a PC volunteer himself in Africa in the 80s, and he took an immediate special interest in helping me out. He came around and escorted me back through yet another security checkpoint to his personal office, where he called the Peace Corps directly to inquire about the correct procedure for submitting the application. He told me all about his Peace Corps experience and subsequent life. Turns out he was from Colorado originally, and we discussed our favorite parts of the state. He gave me his card and told me to send him an e-mail letting him know how I was doing when I got settled into things in Guatemala. I thanked him profusely for his help before shaking hands and saying goodbye, smiling to myself as I left at having had the unique opportunity of making friends with the American consul in Bogotá. The experience almost made the long journey worth the effort, or at least so I thought until I got back on a bus for another 10 long hours, arriving back in Medellín less than 24 hours after I had left, of which over 20 had been spent on a bus.

Back at the voladero things gradually improved. As harsh as Andrés and Alejandro could be at times, they treated me very well, as a friend rather than a tourist or even a client. The two brothers had quite an interesting life story. They had grown up in a small town in the mountains surrounding Medellín. As children they had chased after the first paragliders that arrived in the area from Europe, helping pilots prepare and pack their equipment in exchange for small tips. Bit by bit they had learned about the sport and now, many years later, they now owned their own school. I was honored when they invited me to spend a night at the new house their family had recently built, and I enjoyed the opportunity as well as the beautiful views from the house.

After almost a week of practicing ground handling skills and reading about paragliding theory in my textbook, I was ready for actual practice flights at the training hill. After nearly two hours in a bus through the mountains, we arrived at our site—a large field surrounded on one side by trees, one side by a river, and the remaining two sides by steep slopes of varying heights. I noticed a metal soccer goal and about a dozen cows sitting in the shade of the trees, and made a mental note to avoid flying into these obstacles.

My first flight was a mere few seconds in length, but a whole lot more fun than just lifting the glider over my head. I spent two days working my way up to flights of gradually longer duration, practicing taking off, flying, and last but not least, landing. I gradually got the idea of how to time the final pulling down on the brakes (called “flairing”) in order to produce a smooth landing, with a few harder semi-crashes as well, which served as learning tools. Walking back up the hill in the hot sun was quite exhausting, but by the end of the second day I was taking off and landing fairly consistently with flights of upwards of 20 seconds. Finally, it was time for my first solo high flight.

The weather on the morning of my first solo flight attempt did not appear very auspicious. It had been raining the entire night before, and as I ascended into the mountains on my now familiar bus commute, we entered into a cloud ceiling a few minutes before the voladero. The plan was to do one final tandem flight with Alejandro in which I would take the controls, on then launch for my own solo flight. We waited for a window to open in the cloud cover before taking off, and I successfully followed Alejandro's instructions down to the landing area. The clouds had rolled back over the mountain, however, and we decided to wait until the following day for my solo flight.

Rather than improving, conditions the following day were even worse. Alejandro and I waited over an hour for the clouds to open a bit. He explained that the clouds themselves wouldn't pose a problem for my flight, but that the restricted visibility they caused would. When they partially opened, creating a temporary window for a few minutes, we seized our chance. Already strapped into my harness, I connected into the suspension with my carabiners and prepared my lines for takeoff, awaiting Alejandro's signal. “VAMOS!”, he yelled into the walkie talkie, and I sprung to action, running forward and lifting the lines over my head with all my strength. The effort, however, was apparently not enough, and rather than taking off I went crashing into a ditch. It wasn't the proudest or most fun moment of my life, but I made the decision to try again.

After again setting up the glider and picking some tangled ferns from the lines, I again prepared myself for takeoff. The second attempt was more successful, and I felt my feet leave the ground as the glider took off into the air. I was flying!

My excitement was short lived, however, as I soon got the sensation that I was sinking. What at the time seemed like an embarrassing indication that I was too heavy to be a paraglider was later explained to me to be an unusual flow of descending cold air right after the takeoff point. I was still flying comfortably above the ground, but appeared to be moving closer to some high power lines crossing the valley. “Travis, gira a la derecha”, Alejandro instructed via my radio with a less than casual tone in his voice. I lowered my right hand and turned slowly. Having moved to a more stable airspace, I stopped sinking and cleared the power lines, after which point I was able get comfortably seated in my harness and relax a bit. By that point, however, it was time for me to head to my landing area so that I had plenty of time to set up my approach. I made a direct heading without any deviations for my first flight, and arrived above the field with several hundred feet of altitude to spare. Mango, my landing assistant, gave me the wind direction over the radio and I began doing my landing pattern of figure eight turns into the wind in order to lose altitude.

Landing a paraglider is not overly complicated in normal conditions, but requires some concentration and judgement. The idea is to land facing the wind and to time your final approach so that you land in your intended site (neither landing early or overshooting it). You must come down with a fair amount of speed and pull down the brakes at the last second (If you do it to early you can swing up and slam backwards down to the ground) The landing field in Bello, a suburb of Medellín, was in a fairly urban area with lots of potentially hazardous obstacles on all sides, so the landing had to be pretty precise. When you are at altitude you seem to be floating horizontal and are unable to perceive your sinking to the ground. But as you get closer, the ground seems to quickly rush at you all at once. I continued my landing pattern under the radio instructions from the ground. When it was time for my final approach I turned the wing towards my desired approach. I swooped across the field, and came down with a huge SPLASH! I landed directly in a large puddle, falling forward into the mud on my hands. Nonetheless, despite the dirty clothes and boots, I got up and celebrated my first successful flight.

As the weather improved the following days I was able to make more flights, and they seemed to get more incredible each time. Take offs went much smoother, as my glider inflated quickly and lifted me easily into the air. As I became more comfortable in the air, the slight shakes and bumps that came with wind changes no longer turned my blood to ice. I would no longer hold my breath when my glider would sink after a turn. I was able to spend more time enjoying the incredible beauty and small details of the mountainside. After taking off, I would fly into a river valley and directly over an enormous waterfall. I never noticed it during the early flights when I just flew straight forward, but as I began doing more turns I was able to see and appreciate its superlative beauty.

By my third day of flight I was ready to attempt a bit of thermaling—using the thermal currents to gain altitude. The problem with thermals is that the mixture of warm and cool air necessarily creates turbulence, which as a beginner you normally seek to avoid. For that reason I started in a mild thermal, attempting to follow the birds in their upwards trajectory. The thermal proved to be too weak to get much lift, and I kept on missing the turn and leaving the rising air. Nonetheless, I was able to sustain myself for a bit, neither rising nor sinking, thus lengthening my flight by a few minutes.

On my last day of flight the weather had again become a bit yucky, and as I rode the bus up I was unsure whether or not I'd be able to fly. Nonetheless, when I arrived at the voladero I saw the clouds were clearing up pretty well, with only a few small white patches in the valley below. I discussed the flight plan with Alejandro and got my gear ready. After taking off and getting settled into my harness, I made a direct course for a nearby cloud. Ever since I was a kid I've always dreamed of flying through one of those puffy masses, and that day I got my wish. As I entered into the thin outer layers from the left side of the wall, my visibility was quickly reduced to a solid grayish white. I felt a cool moist breeze on my face, and a bit of turbulence shook the glider. Time seemed to stop as I floated blindly through the mist. After what couldn't have been more than 15 or 20 seconds, the outlines of houses far below in Bello began to appear through the white underneath my feet, and I soon popped out below the cloud and continued my flight.

In all I did 3 tandem and 8 solo flights, and couldn't have asked for a more incredible experience during my time in Colombia. I have had a small taste of paragliding and now greatly desire more time in the air. If I didn't already have plans for the next several years, I would right now be very seriously considering buying a glider and turning right back around to move to Medellín. Nonetheless, a few months ago when I first watched paragliders flying across the Yampa Valley in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, I would have never imagined that the goal of flying I made on that day would be fulfilled so soon. I am young and am sure that I'll have the chance to fly again some day.

As great as flying was, what really made my trip to Colombia was the people. Even after all the good things I heard about Colombia from friends that have visited the country, I still had my preconceptions and biases of what the place would be like. I could not have expected how genuinely warm and welcoming its people actually were. In addition to my instructors and the paragliding community they introduced me to, I seemed to meet friendly people wherever I went, especially on the bus. One day I sat next to an older women on the bus back to Medellín and chatted with her for most of the trip back—when we arrived at the bus station, Nora insisted on buying me an ice cream cone! I told her I'd never forget her and don't intend to.

I heard some very sad stories as well. One friend told me about how his grandfather had been killed by guerrillas who wanted to use his land to grow drugs. This is a country which continues to struggle against numerous challenges, but from what I observed it seems to be doing very well. The overall message I got from my time in Colombia was one of hope. After a few very challenging months before this trip, I have come back with a far different mentality from when I left. I would have never expected the turns my life has taken recently, but I now feel refreshed and rejuvenated, ready to take on the great challenges that lay ahead.