Franz Joseph

Today we climbed the Franz Josef glacier. Not to the top, as that would be a week long climb for even the most seasoned mountaineer, but a very interesting one none-the-less. My favourite part about this was how clearly this showed the complete contrast between tourism here in the western world and South America. The views here were incredible, but instead of climbing over crevasses we were walking through them. On top of this, most amusingly, every step of the way there were a team of guides 5 minutes ahead with axes cutting steps for us to walk up. All the way we walked slowly and safely up these steps in single file holding onto the rope banister that had been put up as an extra precaution. After ice climbing in Bolivia, this really did feel like a bit of a glorified kinder garden field trip, but it was a lovely day out.

Today was also the day that Lukas and Paul were going to do their sky dive. They had held out till now as this was the only jump that took place over a glacier, but now the time had come they were both quite nervous. In particular Paul who was pale as a ghost throughout the whole glacier walk, and who barely muttered a word unless directly spoken to. After the hike they both headed to the airfield, Paul at this point close to turning blue. The rest of the story we only witnessed on video – but it was easily the greatest sky jumping video I will ever see.

As the plane takes off, everyone else cheers and waves to the camera, while Paul just looks anxiously out the window before gulping. A minute later and his instructor (the guy strapped to him) taps him on the shoulder indicating they're ready to go. The side door of the plane swings open and the instructor swings Paul's feet out so they are sitting on their edge, their feet dangling below. The camera pans to face him just to show Paul's head tilted back, resting on his instructor's shoulder, refusing to see what awaits him. The jump itself went as is expected: he did all the compulsory screaming and waving. What made his jump particularly interesting was that another guy had decided to jump solo at exactly the same time. So all the way down you saw the other guy spinning around, showing off to the camera. At several points there was a great shot of Paul seemingly dangling mid-air from the other guy's foot.

After the parachute came out they landed in style. To everyone watching Paul had evidently forgotten his fears; he was a new man. That is, of course, until he less gracefully bends over, head between his legs, and throws up.