Si in South America!: Flying over Atitlan and Semuc Champey

If you could fly, or be invisible, which would you choose?

When I was younger, I always said I'd be invisible (cos then I could sneak onto any plane and fly wherever I wanted), but all of my adult life I've wished I could fly. Probably Superman-style as it would be hard to buy clothes if I had wings...but I digress.

Lago Atitlan - a beautiful lake ringed by hills and volcanoes. We all decided that we'd all place it in our top-5 lake-volcano combinations, not an easy list to enter.

We'd arrived at Santiago de Atitlan 22 minutes after the last boat to San Pedro, so spent a night there and wandered around the indigenous markets. The Mayan women wear some beautiful clothes, so colourful and intricate. The men wear jeans and t-shirts.

My main reason for visiting involved a crazy Guatemalan. I've never been paragliding before and this beautiful setting was the perfect place to take the plunge. We headed up a volcano in the back of a bouncy pickup truck and marveled at the view from the launching point...

Everyone wanted to go first so we drew straws. I cursed my luck as I pulled out the shortest one! It was agony watching Zack take off first and head out into the blue sky.

However, it turned out to be the luckiest straw-pick ever. Zack and Neal both went before me which meant that they took off and landed back on top of the mountain. It turns out that landing where you took off is quite tricky, the wind can push you up too high so you have to come back round for another try. During the landing, the air is quite turbulent, so it is not something people who suffer with motion sickness will enjoy. Zack touched down after 15 minutes of aborted landings. He was so yellow he could have appeared in an episode of The Simpsons. He had also thrown up over the town (sorry citizens of San Pedro). I was even more worried when Neal landed and ran into the trees to empty his guts. He doesn't normally suffer from motion sickness. I do, a lot. I was pretty nervous when we were about to take off.

Luckily for me, being the last to go, we landed in the town! This spared me failed landings and a lot of turbulence, and my stomach behaved - even when we did this:

Wowwww, this is one of the best things I've done in my life! I had a massive grin on my face for the rest of the week!

Next up was Semuc Champey. Not an easy place to reach! Boat to Panajachel, buses to Chichicastenango, Santa Cruz, Sacapulas, Uspantan, Coban and then Lanquin. The route took us along a beautiful mountain pass, which has only just been declared passable, after the side of the mountain sheared off during a rainstorm, killing 58 people in 2008.

It still didn't look that safe...

Semuc Champey is another natural formation that shouldn't be real. The Rio Cahabon gushes through the mountains and, in this particular 500 meter stretch, has forced it's way under a huge lump of rock.

Some of the water bubbles to the top and has created shallow cascading pools of emerald water that is warmed by the sun. A truly beautiful sight!

The day also involved shooting down the river in a inner tube, crawling through a cave, jumping off a bridge into the river and hiking through the jungle. I'd foolishly forgotten my swimming shorts, so this was another thing to add to the list of stuff I've had to do in my underwear.

Last thing on the list was to visit the caves at Lanquin - the caves are average, but as the sun goes down millions of bats shoot out the cave mouth to head into the night sky and feed. If you stand in the right place, they wooshhh past your head. Or crash into you if you disorient them with a camera flash. Not one for those that are afraid of the dark.

That night we celebrated by sampling a local drink called Caña Rey. It looks like paint stripper and tastes like it too. The next day was therefore hangover day. We spent it flowing down the ice-cold river in an inner tube with a beer - the perfect hangover cure!

Ready to take off.