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Luckily the morning was clear, the sky was blue and the Annapurna was there for all to see. The jeep from the flight centre came to pick me up on time and we promptly got going. John, the Nepalese driver was also my instructor for both flights, he explained that because it was the low season they were normally close, he was just there to test the equipment and make sure it wasn’t rotting. Because of my pretty dark eyes (and my pretty green dollars) he would specially reopen for me today. I expressed my gratitude, he looked a bit embarrassed and finally told me that because he was close he had no license, so should anything happen I would not be covered by any insurance whatsoever. I pondered and decided to go for it anyway, couldn’t possibly miss such an opportunity.

Paraglyding around the Anapourna

Degrubenc
2006-08-12 15:04:29

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that if it went wrong I would not have the time to un-strap myself and jump out, charming thought.

We pushed the plane to the end of the runway and a mechanic manually started the propeller. It made a tremendous noise, coughed, smoked, look relunctant to start but eventually it thundered. I quickly jumped in while the mechanic held the wing so that we would not tip over.

First time I wear a helmet inside and aircraft and can't help wondering why. As soon as we are both sat down and strapped in John pushes the throttle to the max and off we go, balancing from one side to the other. I am terrified and shoot worrying glances at the plane who crashed there earlier and no one bother to move away. Are we to end in the same undignified fashion. Then suddenly I felt it, we have lift off, as soon as I thought it we come crashing back down, bounce even higher and then that was it, we were airborne, still shacking but airborne. For the sake of thrills John does a sharp right hand turn, (I am sat on the right hand side) and gives a fright to some poor soldiers walking about.

Soon we pick up some altitude and start making our way to the Annapurna. The craft is incredibly subject to winds and wind tunnels, we are constantly rocketed up and down, from left to right, back and forth. I find it all terribly exciting, it does have the calm solitude of the paragliding but it is tremendous fun. After 30 minutes of flying John lets me handle the controls a little bit, well the stick anyway, it seems to be fairly simple to pilot but I expect it takes a lot of experience to do the landings and take off. We barely approach the Annapura that it is already time to turn back and head home. Unfortunately I only paid for an hour’s worth of flying time. We return gliding at times and powering up the engine every so often. Those planes are incredibly agile and John proudly demonstrate to me the full range of acrobatic figures he can do, I was mightily impressed.

We landed just behind a small plane of Buddha air (who overtook us on the approach sending us veering to the left). The approach is just as scary, if not more than the take off, John seems to cut power just before we touch the runway. So that he glides it in. A good idea but what happens if he needs to overshoot? Thankfully my question does not need to be answered and he lands it like a master.

Yet again my legs are shaking but this time I know it is the excitement, I am keen to get back in and do it again but like my parents keep telling me all good things must have an end. John drove me back to the hotel and I thanked him warmly for a magnificent day. After taking a quick swim and some time to recollect on the extraordinary things I did today I headed yet again to the lakeside to have dinner. This time I had an Italian meal. For some reason it seemed appropriate, I was sat on the shores of the tranquil lake admiring the incredible night sky, with stars placed like delicate sparkly diamonds chips set on a black velvet cushion strung away to the horizon where the mountains lifted uneasily to meet them. (I could have been a poet you know!).

I slept peacefully dreaming of the luck that peter-pan had to be able to fly all by himself.