Monday, October 01, 2007

Hang Gliding @ São Conrado Beach - Rio








Last Sunday I went to São Conrado Beach, here in Rio, to check out the famous hang gliding landing spot. This is a very well known destination for this type of extreme sport and in a matter of a half hour you can watch dozens of landings right on the beach, a few feet from you. They actually do land VERY CLOSE to the sunbathers, that can be kind of dangerous in my view, but they seem to be all at peace with it. You can also hire a flight instructor and jump off the tall cliff on the background on a double-flight, smoothly gliding over the gorgeous beach view. Not for me, thanks. There are also many cool parasailers sharing the sky with the gliders and the image of all those colorful giant nylon birds is really amazing. I shot a few very short videos of my time there and posted here for your enjoyment. I did try to edit them together at Youtube but lost my patience after the nth time. On the clips you can see how fast they descend and how close to the people they land on the sand. Very cool!












No comments: