Flying like a bird

After I had been watching people doing Paragliding for 4 months, I finally decided to do it myself. It looked like so much fun and I was curious about trying it. Furthermore, a friend here did it at the end of August and she told me how amazing it was to fly through clouds and see Puerto from above like a bird.

So, I contacted the company via mail and asked some questions about it - just to be sure, because I don't have a car and as I work it's only possible to do it at weekends. They responded me quite quickly and told me that I just had to tell them when I would like to fly and if the weather is okay, they would come and pick me up next to my house. I reserved a flight for a Sunday two weeks later and was already very excited that I would finally do it.

Sunday was there and at 8:30 a. m. I was waiting for them to pick me up in front of my house. I was very excited because I didn't really know what expected me. In the car I met the other girl that would also do it today, she was very nice, and we were talking a bit about our lives and things like that. That decreased my excitement a bit. We stopped at a supermarket to pick up some more persons but suddenly someone received a phone call that there was too much wind at Teide, and it would not be possible to take off with those conditions. So, we decided to wait 20 minutes and call again if it would become better, but unfortunately it didn't. So, they brought us back to Puerto and we would try it again at 4 p. m. I came home, a bit disappointed but still excited. But meanwhile I felt quite bad, I had to lay down in bed and didn't know what occurred to me. I would not be able to fly like that because I didn't even manage to get up and I didn't eat anything for the whole day. But I didn't have the phone number of the pilot, so I had to wait until 4 p. m. and see what happens. I felt better at about 3 p. m., but I still wasn't sure if I would be able to do it. But half an hour later he called and told me that it would not be possible to fly today, so problem solved. But anyway, I was a bit disappointed because I would have loved to fly that day. But we would try the weekend after that one, so I was sure I would be able to do it one day.

On the Saturday after the other weekend I was again waiting for them to pick me up and was still excited. But it was nice that I already knew half of the people and again there was a nice girl coming with me. This time we went directly to the Teide National Park, without stopping at a supermarket, so I was sure that we would do it this day. The other girl didn't seem like she wanted to talk, so I enjoyed the view out of the window while we were getting up from 0 to 2200 m height. I went that way one time before, when my Dad came to visit me and we went to the Cable Car, and it is so fascinating - all the nature that changes every 5 minutes. When we arrived at the National Park it was sunny, and we could even see the other islands from up there. It was an amazing view!

So, we would really do it - I would fly today! While the others were doing the preparations the other girl and I were enjoying the sun and the amazing view at the Orotava Valley. We had to wait about 45 minutes because there were so many other people that would take off before us. So, we watched them taking off, I imagined how it would feel and got more and more excited. Finally, it was almost our turn and my pilot came to me in order to explain me what I had to do and what was the most important thing. I was proud that we could talk in Spanish and I understood everything he was saying.

So we got ready for take off and I was so excited. The only thing I had to do was to run, run and run until we were in the sky. So he counted down to one and I started to run without thinking until I could notice that we were in the sky. I looked down and it was amazing! For the next 35 minutes I just enjoyed the view and the feeling to fly above the island like a bird. We were flying through a cloud which was a quite weird feeling, but as I was flying a lot by plane I had ever imagined how it would feel to touch a cloud - actually it was wet and cold, but I did it!

After having crossed the cloud we had a great view at Puerto de la Cruz and the other villages beneath, and the sea. It was so fascinating, I could have stayed up there for hours.

But unfortunately, after 35 minutes we were ready to land at the beach. He told me that I would not have to do anything special, just jump a bit and not fall down. It was funny to see all the people watching us and taking pictures and even more funny to see the persons at the beach running away because they were afraid that we would land on them. We landed safely in the sand and my incredible adventure was over.