Paragliding - Flying above the Island

Even if we were ready for take-off, we still had to wait for the wind. At almost 3000 metres it was changing almost every 5 minutes and for the departure we needed wind from a certain direction - towards us. While we were waiting, completely ready for departure, I became more and more excited. I knew that all I had to do was just running towards the abyss as fast as I could and stop when the pilot would tell me. But seeing the several people before that fell down during the start hadn't been helpful or encouraging at all. 

But I really liked my pilot and he told me that he has a lot of experience and usually his partners don't fall and his parachute was new, so everything would be allright. Finally, the wind came from the right direction and we could start. Borja counted from 3 to 1 and I started to run. I ran and ran and didn't stop running and couldn't think of anything else than that I had to run. Suddenly I noticed that my feet were leaving the ground and that we were flying. I didn't fall! Behind me, the pilot also told me that we were flying and that I could stop running now. He took the GoPro I had to hold tight during the departure and took one first picture of me in the air. Then he had to configure some things at the parachute and I just had to sit down and enjoy the flight. 

The view was amazing. Not just nice or great, but AMAZING. At the left there was Teide, surrounded by clouds, under my feet I could see a sea of pine trees and in front of me I could se clouds. Of course, views from an airplane might be like that from time to time, but it's different if you are not in a closed cabin but sitting there, hold by a parachute, your feet completely free. We were getting down very slowly, at  the beginning I couldn't even recognize it, we were just flying in the air and I was happy to be there. But then I saw that we were approaching the clouds and after one last picture with the GoPro my pilot informed me that we would enter in the clouds for 2 minutes now. I was excited about that because I had always wanted to touch a cloud and now I would be IN one!

At first, I didn't feel anything special - the only difference I noticed was that I didn't see anything but white. Then I recognized that it had become colder and a bit wet, or rather humid. That sounds legit if you consider that clouds are just water in fact. But anyway I would have expected something more special. After 2 minutes I could see how the ground and my sight came back and suddenly we were in another world. I could see the sea, Puerto de la Cruz and the other villages in the mountains. It was such an amazing view, I felt like a bird! 

The following 30 minutes I spent relaxing, chatting a bit with the pilot and - most important part - enjoying that magnificent view. My flight partner was taking pictures with the GoPro that I would receive later and that would be my memories for that incredible experience. I was totally sure that those were one of the best 120 euros I had ever spent during my life up to that moment. I could see my house, the commercial cente where I was working and some other places I was visiting often from up there and I loved the change of perspective. After having reached the sea next to Puerto de la Cruz the pilot explained me that we would stay a bit up here because there were nice thermics coming from the sea that would allow a longer flight. I was happy about that and tried to burn that great feeling into my memory - I never wanted to forget that!

After a while I realized that we were going down faster than before and that was also the moment when I was told how to land. My pilot told me that we would land at Playa Martianez and that there was nothing special to do for me, I just had to hold the GoPro tight (as during the take-off) and jump to the ground when we were close enough. Sounded easy for me, and so we approached the ground more and more and I could see how the tourists and other people at the beach became bigger and bigger. I realized that they were all staring at us and started to feel special. Usually I don't like to have all the attention, but in that moment it was a great feeling. I was just hoping that nothing embarassing would happen during the landing. 

When we were about to land we almost hit an old woman lying at the beach - it was too funny to see her shocked face when she jumed away from her towel, and finally almost landed at a towel of two other people, but they also could jump away in the last second. The pilot apologized and finally disconnected the parachute from my backpack. I had come back to the ground without any problems and almost immediately I started to miss the feeling of flying above the island and seeing everything from up there. But I was happy that I was able to have that experience. 

After all the others that had done the flight with us had landed successfully, too, we helped to store the equipment and everything - or we mainly watched the pilots storing the equipment. There were many people coming to us and asking what we have been doing and other things about the Paragliding and I felt really special after all those questions. Finally, we did a final selfie with the GoPro and the experience was over. I paid the 120 euros and walked home - it was just 2 minutes away from Playa Martianez. I was looking forward to receiving the pictures and showing them to my family and friends. 

For the moment it was enough for me to tell everybody that I had survived and that it had been just amazing. My mum was happy that she didn't have to think about my funeral yet and my Dad wanted to see pictures. The good aspect about all that was that I hadn't thought about how much I was missing my boyfriend during the whole activity and that was just what it was supposed to be - going on with my life and stop to think about him all the time. Of course, I loved thinking about him, but in a smaller amount. My only problem now was that I had been looking forward to that experience for such a long time and now that it was over I didn't know that to do next. Booking great experiences like diving or parachute was a nice lifestyle, but for a student without any income too expensive on the long term. So I had to find something else - sports, arab language, etc. But for the moment I was just hungry, bought some food and relaxed for the rest of the day. 

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