So then the big day.
The birthday present to myself. The sky is clear and quite blue as it should be, a slight cloudiness around the machapuchare, nothing exciting. The view to the hill of Sarankot shows green and brown and yellow, forest and again forest and above the summit.
The launch site.
Perfect prospects for a successful maiden flight
Should I feel something on such a morning? Unrest? Anxiety? Are there statistics about accidents? Death falls? I take a business argument to help.
Any accident caused by suboptimal quality of the pilot would immediately bring the business to a standstill. So the organizers must do everything they can to avoid such a scenario. All right? With these (supposed) insights, I calmly dedicate myself to breakfast and almost miss the time when I will be picked up by the organizer.
Only the bad pilots left?
Like everything else in Asia, things are moving forward and yet not. Somewhere in an office I have to fill in a document, including an address that could be contacted in case of need. The friendly gentleman, speaking almost perfect English, tells me that a competition is also taking place on that day, with the best pilots taking part.
"So the best Pilots are not available today?" My question sounds funny, but it's meant seriously.
He laughs loudly and agrees with me. "Exactly. Only the bad ones left. "
Not surprisingly, I join in his laughter a bit cramped.
On the way to Sarankot
The jeep has to find its way to Sarankot through the dense traffic, once again one wonders whether there are traffic rules in this country at all and if anyone knows of their existence.
Throughout the world, a double line is considered sacred and impassable and is severely punished for disregard. Here it seems to be a kind of invitation to change lanes and use the space available there for one's own purposes.
Also not surprising is that the upper part of the hill is no longer paved. Once more the game of the lottery balls crosses my mind, and since I am allowed to sit in front as elder statesman ( unbelted, of course, since the counterpart of the clasp can't be found), I am shaken a little bit more than the gentlemen in the back seats.
Their role seems unclear to me, but a young man of Chinese provenance also seems to want to fly. The others obviously belong somehow to the team.
The launch site
Yes, and then we are there, the launch site is a slightly sloping meadow, where numerous men (where are the women?) have gathered to plunge into the depths. The nice gentleman who took care of me also introduces himself as my pilot, his name is Anil, which gives me a very welcome push in a positive direction (for insiders: see „Der Fährmann“, protagonist, but doesn't even survive the first twenty pages of the story).
I am provided with appropriate equipment, helmet, straps, closures. The wonderful bright red paraglider is laid out on the ground, and I am already informed about the first decisive steps. Amazingly, my pulse stays calm, I expected quite a bit of excitement.
Where is the announced adrenaline rush?
But then we are already running down the slope, a short jolt, and the ground stays behind us.
We fly
As gentle as a feather. Silently, very quietly, the earth is slipping away. We are carried out into apparent nothingness. A strange silence overcomes me. Anil takes photographs and films while he deliberately controls his device. The thermals are perfect, we slowly get higher and higher …
Oh, Tiburon, now I know from my own experience what you must have been feeling. I quote from "A Snake in the Dark":
"Tiburon licked his lips and crossed himself. Then he grabbed the crossbar, so tight that the knuckles got white, took a start, and ran with stumbling steps down the slope. Nothing happened in the beginning, the wheezing grew louder and his legs throbbed, and he doubted that he would keep the pace for a long time, when suddenly a barely noticeable jerk went through the wing, he was torn off his feet and took off.
He flew.
One meter below him the ground scurried by, then two meters, three, four, the soil shone wet and cold. He didn't feel the icy wind driving tears to his eyes, nor the straps digging painfully into his wrists. His dream had come true, he had escaped the earth, a God, immortal for all time. Astonishment overcame him and amazement. For the first time he felt free, thrown out of the world. I made it, he thought. If I die now, it doesn't matter.“
I don't feel like a god, but the feeling is a bit extraterrestrial. Numerous other pilots circle around us, sometimes threateningly close, but they know their craft. After all, this is something they do every day.
However, I remember a conversation in Switzerland while watching the paragliders take off. Obviously it is not the very young or the newcomers who are responsible for most accidents. It's the older, experienced pilots who feel so confident about their experience that they get overconfident.
But I guess that applies to everything. Just think of cooking. The first try is usually the best. Then you think you have it under control and fail miserably.
Yes, human nature. Always a mystery ...
The world in the eye of the eagle
But I don't want this flight to be a mystery to me. It doesn't look like it at all, we do our rounds very calmly, a little further down, until one can almost look into the kitchen of the houses there. Then up again, taking advantage of the perfect thermals, until the world appears small and insignificant in the bird's eye.
There seems to be no danger at any moment. The pulse beats quietly, as if I were sitting comfortably in front of the TV. Amazing, I would have expected otherwise. The mountains seem to be far away and at the same time very close. So high up in the air you are a part of the world, different than usual. Mountains, hills, cool air, above the blue sky. And us.
A bit of acrobatics?
I could glide on endlessly, but time flies fast. We approach the lake, fly over it, below and above us only blue, the lake at its northern ends brown and full of dirt.
Anil tells us that climate change is also having an impact here, that over and over again whole slopes plunge into the lake and slowly let it silt up.
"You want some Acrobatics?"
"Acrobatics? What do you mean?"
"I show you."
The next moment we are doing the craziest spinners, an old feeling of Fairground is evident. My stomach jumps in all directions, just like I loved it as a child.
A wonderful end to a wonderful flight.
Now we glide down quickly, a few short instructions for landing, and then we already are standing on the meadow, like numerous other aviators, and all, really all, even the young Chinese, who had tied a flag of his home country, show a proud face. Me too.
They bring me back to the hotel with the same car. The landlord receives me with a knowing grin.
"All well?"
"I survived."
PS Matching Song: Foo Fighters - Learn to fly
And here the journey continues ...
