As we reached the hill where the Paragliding centre is, I was amazed by the view. It is quite breath taking! Really high up with a clear view of everything around - which kind of makes it even more intimidating knowing that I would jump off that pretty soon.

Place for paragliding on Gunung Banyak

meditation before flying in the sky

We arrived at the centre and I paid 350 000 rps for the jump: around 22€. They told me to wait, and so I did, sitting on the edge of the hill, looking over the horizon I was going to fly over, imagining if it could be the last thing I see. Drama, but I'm jumping off a cliff, give me a break! Then, my instructor arrived - probably the coolest guy I have met in Indonesia.

He looked like he belonged in a Jazz band or something. Smooth voice, cool walk, cool white beard, kind of looked a bit african even! He was wearing these very stylish radical sunglasses. I liked him immediately, as he was very nice and presented himself. He would always smile and say "Oh yes yes" after everything I said. So he and his assistant dressed me up with my gear and proceeded to explain what I should do: "When I say '1 2 3' you run and don't stop running. Only if I say so." Alright, that sounds easy. Just run. Then, he geared up, the parashute was ready, he positioned himself behind me and we played the waiting game.

Dress me up to fly

my parachute still on prepare and waiting the wind

What were we waiting for? The wind. And the funny thing is, they were whistling like they were calling up the wind. As I was waiting, I was looking towards the place I was about to jump off. I started thinking: "What the hell is wrong with me? Why on earth have I decided that today it would be fun to run off a cliff? I have issues." Then, a sudden breeze came and my instructor said "OK Rita, 1... 2..." me "OH MY GOD" and then the final "..3!! RUN". I ran. As fast as I could. And as we were approaching the edge he started screaming "NOT SO FAST NO SO FAST". Oh no, I did it wrong and now we will die.

Im try to take off

I stopped suddenly. Just in time not to fall off the cliff. He stopped too and laughed saying "Never stop". Oh, yeah, that's right. But you were screaming and I was not prepared to die. It's never a good sign when the professional flyer starts screaming. Ok, back to starting point. Waiting again. Whistling so that the wind would come quicker. This time I was mortified - how am I supposed to run? Slower? How do I do this without dying? The breeze came back and so did the counting "Ok! 1... 2... 3 RUN!"

This time I runned a bit slower, but still ran with a decent speed. As we were approaching he screamed STOP STOP STOP. Oh no, I did it wrong again. I am just not meant to fly, I guess. I asked "Was it me?" to which he replied, smiling very relaxed "oh yes yes, when it's not perfect, we don't fly." Back to the start again. OK, I have no hope left in me.

This time the assistant is holding me by the  belt to push me. Breeze, 1 2 3, I was pushed and suddenly... I was flying. I was on the air, flying. As we settled now that we were on the air, I hold on to the things I am supposed to hold on. The second I do that, he screams NO NO NO NOT LIKE THAT. Oh my God, I am so bad at this. I only had 2 things to do: run and then hold on to the gear. I did both of them wrongly.

So, he proceeded to take my hands off of where they were, and then showing me that I had to hold on to the same exact thing, but the other way around, because the way I was doing it I was putting my arms over the parashute cables. We could die. After contemplating that I could've just killed me and the coolest guy in Indonesia because of my inability to do things right, I adjusted my seat and looked around. I was on the air.

FLYYYYY.......AUA.............

me and my instructor (the coolest guy) on tandem jumps

My feet had nowhere to stand. I was finally flying. And the feeling was incredible. It was about 20 minutes of flying. We went around and around and I did not want to go down, but obviously we had to. As we start going down, he tells me that when we land, I should put my legs up, never down. Hmm, wonder why. I found out really soon when we started getting close to the floor at a pretty high speed. The landing was not soft, I fell to one side and scraped my hands. But my legs were very much OK because of his advice!

He appologised for the landing and we waited together for my host. I found out he has been flying almost everyday for the last 20 years. He has jumped off so many mountains and clifffs, he was an instructor in Jakarta before, and now he is in Batu, doing tandem jumps and also teaching! Then, my host came and I said goodbye. And he went up to fly again.

#gunung#banyak#paragliding#tandem 

Courtesy: Rita Andrade