I've quite enjoyed my time here, and hope to come back in the near future. Unfortunately, the owner already has someone lined up to work for room for next summer. I like the idea of staying here for a while, cleaning for a free bed, and doing some oddjob software contracting for food money. This has been by far the cheapest place we've stayed so far; the food, wine, and beer we've consumed here has probably averaged out to around $10/day. We would have spent about $100 for our latter 10 days here were it not for our splurge on Wednesday.
Wednesday was a gorgeous day. As we finished washing some windows, struggling to dry them before the hot sun did it for us and left streaks, the owner of the hostel remarked that it was the last nice day for a while. Emily had been talking about paragliding, and hostel reception makes reservations so we decided to go for it. Petra, the owner, called the paragliding place and arranged for us to meet the pilots at noon in Murren. Remember, Murren is posted as a 50 minute walk, and it is now 11:15. In a textbook case of being penny-wise, pound-stupid, Emily and I decided to save the 8 francs or so it costs to ride the cablecar up to Murren, opting instead to throw on shoes and socks and dash out of the hostel without even grabbing a water bottle. 35 sweaty minutes later, I was pulling cash out of the ATM in Murren, and we managed to get to the cable car station with ten minutes to spare, though still to cheap to buy a bottle of water. We found two men in large backpacks, introduced ourselves, and shortly thereafter attached ourselves to these men and ran off a cliff with them. Like this:
Emily and her pilot are the first off the cliff, followed by me and my pilot. The third guy, who also does tricks at the end of the video, is neither of us. We were lucky to have this video; we opted not to pay an extra 30 francs each for the provided in-flight pics and video, but when we got back to the hostel we were telling a local British ex-pat paraglider that we finally went, and he mentioned that he'd earlier filmed a takeoff in Murren from his office window "because something often goes wrong at that takeoff...people getting stuck in trees and the like." Despite his disappointment at the lack of person-tree interaction, he was kind enough to bring me a copy. So, Tim, if you're reading this, thanks!
Paragliding was excellent. Not at all like skydiving, which is very fast and thrilling. Paragliding was more like being an autumn leave drifting serenely down to the ground. It's almost silent, and you're moving slow enough forward that you can have a quiet conversation over the breeze with your pilot strapped behind you over. It's also much more comfortable than having your weight supported by straps around your thighs, as in skydiving. Instead, once your in the air you move into a sitting position on the rigid back of your harness, and the pilot provided a nice backrest. Really my only complaint is that the twenty-ish minutes to the valley floor was far too short.
Pilot is indeed the correct term. As far as I can tell, the paragliding company is basically an airline under Swiss law and even has a special disclaimer on the back of their ticket discussing the applicability of air travel legislation to them. As the pilot said, "the only airline where you get to choose your pilot." Of course, Emily chose the younger, cuter one.
We picked the right day to go. Temperatures have dropped, leaves have yellowed, and there's been rain every day since then. Gimmelwald is sad to see me go too.
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