Two Attempts for Paragliding

After my diving experience I started to forget a bit about how much I was missing my boyfriend. But, of course, I missed him so much and I really wanted him to be back. But as I couldn't change anything about that I focused on the things I could change. I tried to do sports almost every day which wasn't really easy at 6pm after work, but soon I felt better and that motivated me to continue. Furthermore, as I already mentioned, I had booked a Paragliding flight for the 15th of november and was so excited about that! Since I had arrived I had always been watching the people arriving at Playa Martianez in Puerto de la Cruz and it was on my To-Do-List. Even if it was expensive I wanted to try it, it's one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences, so 120 euros isn't that much counted for so many years. 

At work there wasn't much going on, but it kind of distracted me more or less and filled my days with something to do. I knew after the first two months that I would never want to do that job for my entire life, but anyway it was a nice experience that would help me to find a work later on - the internet is the future, so it cannot harm to know something about Online Marketing. Furthermore, I could compensate the fact that I didn't have any internet in my appartment with that work - after 9 hours of Facebook, Twitter and other things like that I simply wanted to forget about all that and didn't mind not having internet (well, at least for 80% of the time - I would have loved to watch some English or German things via Internet). 

So it was sunday - the day for which I had booked my paragliding flight. They had called me the day before to fix date and hour and told me that I would be picked up at 8:30 am. As all the activities you had to get up early to experience something, but I was sure that I wouldn't have slept longer if it was later. So I spoke a bit with my boyfriend via mobile phone and called my Mum who wanted to prevent me from doing that. I didn't try to explain her how secure all that was because she wouldn't have believed me, so I just told her that I loved her and ended the call when she started to talk about my funeral - now I was really afraid. 

The next morning I woke up much too early and much too tired. I stayed in bed, had a glass of orange juice and waited for the time to get up. I got ready, packed some things and left the house to go to the hotel that was the meeting point. I was quite excited because I didn't know anything about Paragliding, but I had read experiences in tripadvisor etc. and they were all more than happy about their experience. But of course, only happy (and surviving) people would write anything down there. Anyways, I decided to look forward to that day and finally the car arrived. 

I met the pilots which were quite nice and funny, and one other girl that would fly today as well. I found out that she was Polish but lived in Hamburg for 5 years an she spoke German perfectly. So we were talking a lot about our lives, our fears about Paragliding and other things. It was nice to have somebody to talk to. We stopped at a parking in La Laguna to pick up two other people, but suddenly the driver received a phone call. He told us that his colleague from Izana (the place where we wanted to start our flight) had called him and told him that there was too much wind at the moment and it wasn't possible to take off. 

I was a bit disappointed - I was afraid, but also excited and really wanted to to that flight. Furthermore, I wasn't that flexible regarding dates, because I only could do it during the weekend. So we decided to sit down in the small gasoline station café and have a coffee until he would call his colleague again 20 or 30 minutes later. The girl and me continued talking but we were both not quite patient. We wanted to fly, to know how it is and live that experience. But after one hour (Spanish 30 minutes) he called his colleague again and told us that we would have to get back to Puerto because at the moment it wasn't possible to take off. We would try it again in the afternoon. 

So he brought us back to the city centre and I went home, falling into bed. I was hungry, but I was too tired to prepare something to eat, so I just watched TV. Suddenly, I felt incredibly dizzy. I couldn't even stand up or fix any point at the wall or in the room. I had never felt like this before and I was a bit scared. I thought that it might be the lack of nutrition, so I got up and prepared something to eat carefully. After some spaguetti it was a bit better but I still felt dizzy. I had to get back to bed, lay down and stop moving. As soon as I tried to move it became worse again. I asked my Mum about that but she didn't know neither what it might be, she told me I should drink a lot. That's what I did but it didn't become much better. 

I was worried about the flight in the afternoon and thought about calling him that I wasn't able to do that today, but I didn't have the right number. So I had to wait and hope that either the flight was still not possible or that I would feel better two hours later. Two hours later I received the call that it was not possible to do the paragliding flight that day and actually I was quite happy about that because even if I felt a bit better it was still not the best feeling to have an experience like that. So we agreed on trying it saturday the next week and I really hoped that it would be possible to do it then. Of course, I had a lot of weekends left, but the weather wouldn't get better in winter even if Tenerife is also called the "island of the eternal spring".  

So the whole following week I was looking forward to the weekend and hoping that the weather would stay good. On friday I received the call from the company and they told me that weather forecasts look good (they said that the last time, too) and we would meet at 9am the next day. I wasn't as excited as the last time, maybe because I already knew some of the people and the beginning of the adventure. We went to another hotel to pick up a Russian girl and this time we started our way to the Teide Nationalpark directly, without stopping at the parking in La Laguna. For me that was the sign that the weather was good enough and that we would fly - nobody would drive all the way up to Teide just "to have a look". So my excitment grew while I looked outside the window and saw how the landscape was changing. I had done the ways up to Teide once, but it's always nice to see how nature changes when you are going up from sea level to 3000 metres. 

After 1,5 hours we arrived at Izana, a place next to the astronomic centre, where we would take off. There were already a lot of other pilots waiting for their departure (it was a bit like an airport with just one runway. We were chatting with the pilots and enjoying the wonderful view up there. A bit later, my pilot - called Borja, explained me what I had to do, how the take-off works and that there is no reason to be afraid. But while we were watching the others take off (there were about 10 before us) and 2 of them fell during the departure and had to start again, I was a bit afraid anyway. But I just wanted  to do it now, not waiting any longer or seeing people doing it wrong. So after more than one hour of waiting it was finally our turn and we got ready for departure..

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