Field Research

Last Sunday was our first day off in La Merced.  After a week full of meetings, gathering information, and gaining more clarity on our project goals here, we took the opportunity to walk to our new friend, Marisella's, house for lunch and a tour of her family's finca.  The views from her family home were amazing, and it was a great opportunity to meet a Mercedeña, see her farm, and eat the most amazing home-cooked Colombian meal I’ve had thus far. 

         After thanking Marisella and her mother, we were ready to continue our hike up the mountain.  We climbed a bit higher until we reached El Tambor.  We got to the paragliding site and saw two huge parachutes in the air above us.  We sat and watched the paragliders for a while until they came back to the cliff for a landing.  One of the instructors greeted us and yelled, “Vamos! Quien esta listo?”  The four of us looked around at each other.  Nobody had come mentally prepared that day to jump off of the side of a mountain and be carelessly carried off by the wind…However, after some hesitation and some more time watching the paragliders take a second trip up in the air, I decided that I needed to do it.  I knew it was our day off, but I figured we were here for a project on tourism development and some field research still needed to be done. 

         I met Santiago, one of the instructors, and he told me that the wind needed to die a bit, but then he would be happy to take me out.  He was very nice and incredibly smart, and he is actually a perfect example of the challenge of youth retention in La Merced.  His family is from La Merced and his father actually owns the land where the paragliding site is.  He told me that he actually prefers La Merced to larger cities, like Manizales.  But there isn’t as much opportunity for him in the town.  He is currently going to school in Manizales to get his degree in civic engineering and build his career.  But in the meantime, he thoroughly enjoys his visits home, where he can take people paragliding.  I learned that he was only 19 years old.  This made me nervous at first, but then I figured that he had most of his life to look forward to still, and probably wasn’t particularly looking to end it this afternoon as he helped me learn how to fly. 

         After the wind calmed a bit, he began to help strap me into the parachute.  One of the other instructors gave me a helmet, which just seemed silly.  Even if I plummeted to the ground and landed on my head, how was this plastic helmet really going to save my life?  But I think it was more for psychological comfort rather than functionality.  Although I knew it was useless, I couldn’t help but feel safer once it was on my head. 

         The girls had their cameras ready to document my literal leap of faith.  But before I knew it, the parachute was up, and Santi was already strapped in behind me.  The wind began to pull us off of the side of the mountain, and before I knew it, my feet left the ground and my legs began to dangle in the air.  As I clung to the straps that held me into the harness, the enormous red parachute carried us through the air and away from the take off point.  As I looked down, I saw fields of coffee and plantains pass below my feet.  We got a bit further away, and the coffee turned into open pastures with tiny brown figures that could only be cows. All that was visible in the distance was never ending, rolling hills, white clouds, and the sun that was getting ready to set.  I was surprised at how calming the experience was despite the prospect of the terribly long fall back to the earth.  It was an incredible feeling to glide through the air.  I knew that I would want to write about the experience for my blog, but even as I sit here and try to describe it, I can’t find a way to give the actual flight any literary justice.

       

 I was so hypnotized by the view that about 20 minutes later, I was surprised to see how far away we had gotten from the launch site.  Santi yelled to tell me that we would be landing in a field that he was pointing to.  We came in pretty fast as we drew closer to the ground.  Santi told me to lift my legs and before I knew it, our fast glide slammed quickly to a halt.  I was quickly snapped back to reality.  My wings were gone and I was just sitting on my butt in the middle of a field of tall grass while some cows gnawed on their cud nearby. 

         I helped Santi pack the parachute away and we walked up a hill to the road and waited for a car to give us a ride back up the mountain.  I didn’t wake up that morning thinking I would get the chance to fly, but I guess that’s how life is here in La Merced.  It was easy to see why it was one of the town’s biggest tourist attractions. 

         One of the challenges for tourism development in La Merced is the lack of integration between sectors.  There is a very strong individualistic culture between businesses here, which is most likely due to residual distrust within the community.  One of the focuses of our project will be to foster more collaboration and collective action, in hopes that tourism can create opportunities for people like Santi, and spur economic growth for the whole community of La Merced.  We’ll probably have to revisit the paragliding one more time before we go though.  There is still more field research to be done…