Learning to Fly

They say you never forget your first time and I can't disagree; It lasted about five minutes, saw me lying facedown next to a pile of shit and ended in high fives all round. It's also true, as most people say, that it gets better with practice and as my technique improved I grew less nervous and more concerned with hitting the spot as I went down. Not that it was an incident free progression, there were some worrying encounters with large bushes and I failed to get it up occasionally, but on the plus side I was managing to make it last longer - on the 6th time (I keep a careful log of these things) I managed to keep it up for 18 minutes.

To start with there as many downs are there are ups, but with practice it is possible to complete the process without having to go down. Indeed it becomes a point of pride not to go down and a seminal moment in any man's life when he can get the job done without recourse to the bottom. I'm trying to think of a suitable analogy but my imagination fails me, I guess learning to paraglide is an experience all on its own. And every flight offers something different. The main highlight of the first solo flight, for example, was being unijured at the end of it. Later on I was pleased to discover that putting your wing into a tree doesn't necessarily damage it (though it can, as Ricky later found out). Then came the satisfaction of my first landing exactly on the designated spot and finally top landings back at the launch site on the hill rather than the LZ in the valley thus enabling more flights in a short space of time and showing off in the front of the assembled crowd.

For real showing off though, there was only one man in town, Edinson Alvarez, who took time out from being Colombian champion and all round legend to teach us to fly and also took us up on some bonus tandem flights where he demonstrated the Death Spiral along with diverse other impressive flying tricks (photos, and possibly a video if I work out how to do it, at the usual place). Strangely, doing the Death Spiral with Edu at the controls was a lot less scary than trusting Zorba, who flew like a bird throughout, to obey the rules on not cutting people up when they're over the ridge. In the end my landing that day was as expertly controlled as it was hasty, but for a moment the cafeteria roof was looking like my best option.

Also a bit too exciting at times was our graduation flight at the Chicamocha Canyon where the thermals were somewhat stronger than we were used to. The views were stunning though and, most importantly, at the end of it we were P2 qualified and allowed to do it on our own.

Absolutely amazing.

Photos at: www.don-simon.smugmug.com