Laguna la María 2008

Laguna la María, Colima
Centro de ecoturismo en Colima, Mexico

Paragliding La Cumbre Colima

Mexican Pacific Magazine Article

The view of the world is different from the top and in Colima there is no exception. That’s why a new breed of adventure-seeker is taking to the nearby hills to experience the adrenaline rush of jumping into open space.

In Colima the conditions are favorable to practice paragliding any day of the week and most seasons of the year. La Cumbre, a grass covered mountain 20 minutes from the capital is the preferred point for most gliding enthusiasts as it’s very accessible by ground. It has a sharp drop off of 400 meters from a little clearing where it’s easy to catch the thermal currents and coast on the air that comes sweeping up the side of the mountain.

Gliders begin to assemble in the late morning to lay out the colorful chutes on the grassy knoll, organize the various strings so that they’re not untangled and wait for the winds to pick up. Then at the right moment, helmets on and strapped into harnesses with hanging seats, they each toss their parachutes in the air, tug on the wind to see if it is right and take three running steps off the edge into the open air.

La Cumbre is not steep but drops dramatically down to a little town at the base, which grows tiny as the glider mounts on the thermal winds that come rushing up the canyon wall. Tomato fields, crops and farmland weave neat geometric patterns and textures below. Grassy areas and low forest are all visible in a stunning topographical map come to life. The sound of the silence is beautiful and awe inspiring.

Eagles and other birds coast nearby as if they too are enjoying the warm summer day. The church spires, snaking dirt roadways and colonial buildings of Colima present themselves below in an orderly, colorful fashion like a children’s miniature village. The rolling hills of Colima’s fertile fruit valley are visible until Manzanillo and in the opposite direction, the two volcanoes loom.

Paragliding off La Cumbre article from Mexican Pacific Magazine

Colima's Quiet Charm

Colima's Quiet Charm
By KATHERINE ASHENBURG
Published: February 8, 2004

The city's situation near two volcanoes and in an earthquake zone means that it has little architecture worthy of the name, old or new, and the standard building is a ground-hugging, one-story structure. Perched on the edge of disaster, fading, peeling, dignified Colima continues its precarious life without pinning its hopes on grand monuments or dressing up for visitors. Last year an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 caused at least nine deaths in Colima and hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage. Each room in the Ceballos has a ceramic sign in the archway between bedroom and bathroom that says, ''En caso de sismo, párese aquí'' (''In case of earthquake, stand here''). This year, I eyed the decorative plaque with new respect.

As a result of the earthquake, Colima now has an estimated 500 construction sites. Every so often, there's a rubble-strewn lot between two standing houses, like a missing tooth in a smiling mouth. One of the city's few remaining colonial buildings, the church of San Felipe de Jesús, at Constitución and Vicente Guerrero, has an elaborately carved 18th-century facade and a plaque noting that the revolutionary hero Miguel Hidalgo served here as a parish priest. Ominous cracks run like veins behind the altar, and the congregation has decamped to the chapel, leaving the main church bare except for a few lonely statues.

New York Times article