Date: Oct 29th 2014
Occasion: Celebrating 5 years cancer-free by throwing myself off a cliff
I didn't intend to go paragliding. I briefly considered it as I investigated my holiday resort, but then dismissed it as something other people do and definitely not something that I do. But I'm not me anymore, or not the person I used to be at any rate. I survived cancer, for God's sake, so not much else should scare me. So when I got to Olu Deniz (means Dead Sea, not the most auspicious of names) and saw lots of people paragliding onto the beach, I started pondering, why is it always other people doing amazing/fun things and not me? So I didn't think about it for too much longer and booked the experience.
Early in the morning, the bus arrived at the hotel. The windscreen had a huge crack running down the centre of it. Did someone land on it? Try to escape before reaching the top of the mountain? Neither option allayed any fears. My mum at this point had gone for a panicky lie-down by the pool with a few cocktails (still 9 am), to wait for my return.
Babadag (Baba - "Father" and Dagh - "mountain" in Arabic) is HIGH. Imagine the highest mountain you can think of, then double it. In my fear, which was focusing to a point, it loomed even higher. 2 km to be exact, and very close to the sea (less than 5 km).
My pilot, Hasan, "chose" me from the other panicky-looking people on the bus. Thankfully, I wasn't the last to be chosen, bringing back awful thoughts of school PE sessions. I didn't have much time to think about anything, no instructions apart from "just stand up" which was something I thought I could manage. As soon as the chute rose above our heads in the wind, our feet came off the floor and we swooped off the top with a sickening sideways slide of my stomach. I couldn't think of much apart from "God this is high, I'm not sure I'm going to like this.." but as I shuffled back to sit in the "seat", it was comfortable and I began to enjoy the beautiful feeling of freedom in the air with no turbulence and just the slight rushing of the wind. The views of the Blue Lagoon and the coastline with it's 12 islands were breathtaking.
I begged the pilot "no spinny spinny" but we had to do "something little bit extreme" (wasn't this extreme enough????) to drop down to the beach after approx. half an hour in the air. While we were above the sea, the horizon suddenly lurched at an unnatural angle and then again. We then floated smoothly down to land on the walkway by the beach in front of a cafe called "Help". No comment. While the pilot joked with his mates, I used my kneepads and sank gratefully down on the grass, unfortunately looking like I was praying to Allah. He didn't take offence and just said "Ok, that's fine, you lay down".
Slightly fake/nervous smile before take off.
When I returned to the hotel, my mum had finished her cocktail and half of the one she had got for me, bless her!
Fabulous experience, so glad I did it.
