Foz Do Iguacu Day #3

          Today we went SKYDIVING! That's right, I said SKYDIVING. We were signed up to go at 8:30am so we quickly ate breakfast, packed our bags and picked up our room and got on our way. However, right as I was checking us out of our room, the tour guide pulled Dayne aside and told him our skydiving was pushed back to 1:00pm. Pushing the dive back did nothing but give me time to reconsider and second guess our decision to do it. So we decided to keep our room until normal checkout time at 11:00am. So we headed upstairs to our room to rest some more while watching the morning news. That's one thing that has been kind of difficult is watching t.v. and not knowing what is going on except from what I can gather from the pictures. Let's just say we watched a few soccer games instead. We actually were going to go to a soccer game but the time didn't work out.
         The ride to take us to the skydiving location showed up and we were on our way. When we got there we filled out a bunch of paper work and than just had to sit and wait for our name to be called to be suited up. A guy came over and called out Mary, so I thought that's close enough, maybe he is struggling to say my name? He got me set up with a jumpsuit and had to go do something. Meanwhile another guy came up to the group and asked for Kimaree... uh yeah that's me, but I already have a guide. Long story short, There was indeed a Mary and a Kimaree on the trip... I had the wrong guide... oops. After getting the RIGHT guide he gave me the run down on how things were going to go and then I just had to sit and wait.

                                                         Just practicing for the jump.  Ahhh!

 

Pretty soon we were all packed in this tiny plane and ready for take off! My guide lived in New Zealand for awhile and that's where he did his training. He new English pretty well so it wasn't too hard of struggle being able to understand him. Dayne's guide was actually from Argentina and only spoke Spanish so Dayne did his best to understand her.

 

While we were up in the plane my guide was telling me basically what we were looking at below. From up there we could see the Cataratas Falls, Argentina and Paraguay, Itaipu Dam, and the friendship bridge that connects Argentina and Brazil. The view was incredible! 

We were packed in the plane like a bunch of sardines! There were 3 jumpers, 3 guides, 3 photographers, and 1 pilot all crammed in this tiny plane. We were a little squished, 

Dayne of course had to snag a kiss before the big jump! 

Dayne was the second jumper and then I was the last. When it was my turn to jump it almost felt surreal. I scooted over to the door, held on to my straps, tucked my legs back under the plane, and the next thing I know I am flying through the air! The view was unbelievable. I never realized how many rivers and lakes there were! And it turns out the Itaipu Dam is the 2nd largest dam in the world. Second to know in China, I guess.

Dayne's guide let him do some steering on the way down so that was cool!

 

 My guide was awesome! He loved hearing me giggle so he kept doing all these fun things like spinning us 360 real fast, then figure 8, then break and just float, etc. it made the fall even more fun.

 The view was pretty spectacular! We were falling basically right on the boarder of Paraguay and Brazil and then Argentina was just right there too!

         The whole skydiving experience was definitely thrilling! I was just sad the fall wasn't longer, it felt like it went by so stinkin' fast. We are really glad that we did it, especially since we have always wanted to try skydiving but wanted to do it in a cool location. I would say Brazil was a great place to decide to do it. Seriously, I get giddy just thinking about skydiving. Haha!

         In the end, we finished with plenty of time and they were nice enough to take us straight to the bus station to catch our bus. So here we are at the bus station at 4:00pm and we'll arrive in Sao Paulo tomorrow at 9:00am. Here's to hoping that we'll have a better bus ride back than on the way here! Fingers crossed.