Paragliding! PARAGLIDING!

I’ve heard about an Easter paragliding festival since my first days here. In my head this was some sort of seaside, cliff event wherein Ghanians picked up parachutes and offered to jump off cliffs with tourists for a nice little sum of money. 

Well there was jumping off cliffs but in was no where near the water and all the pilots were American, plus like two Europeans. Where this whole thing originated, I suddenly had no idea, but given how legitimate of an operation it was, I decided I would like for nothing more than to jump off the mountain.  (And by legitimate, I mean licensed pilots.)

Take off ramp.

Bottom of the take off ramp.

We’ve all been here long enough to get how things work. Namely, there is rarely any real order to anything. Sure they had us all fill our forms and they collected them in a specific order, but really that meant nothing. While everyone was up sitting in the shaded guest area, we were down on the take off ramp talking to the Ghanians working the event. After several hours of this, we were able to get our whole group put together and we were put first in line... right after the group that paid the event workers to let them go first. 

You see that in our eyes? It's determination.

Determination to completely cut the line.

Bribing their way to the front in typical Indian-who-lives-in-Ghana-sugar-daddy fashion. 

Living here has created some very strange racial stereotypes for all of us.

Mariel taking off!

She lost a shoe.

It was classic.

While waiting I started chatting with the lady (a UCLA alum!) who coordinates the whole event. She explained to me that this region in Ghana was looking to update its Easter celebrations (guess things get a little stale after 2,000 years?) and draw tourism to the area. The ministry's solution? Paragliding. Since then, they’ve brought in this American lady to organize the whole thing and she brings in professionals from all the world. In the 7 years it’s been running, they haven’t had accident or incident and it’s been an incredibly positive experience for everyone involved.

Having watched other people go for about an hour, I really wasn’t nervous by the time it got to be my turn. I was more worried about my parents reaction to their daughter jumping off a cliff in a third world country than my own safety. Paragliding just looked so gentle!

After getting all harnessed in my pilot gave me a few basic instructions but mostly we just chatted... because he was from Salt Lake City! Small world! I asked him how landing worked he was just like eh we’ll go over it when we get there. Really, this paragliding thing was a piece of cake. 

Geared up!

When it was our turn to go we just ran down the ramp and waited for the parachute to do its thing. From there is was absolute serene bliss. Thousands of feet in the air, we escaped the Ghana heat and just floated in the wonderful silence. Paragliding has to be the greatest of all the air sports, because you can stay in the air indefinitely and you have tons of control. We went over hills and forest, up and down, and across town. Toward the end of the ride he asked me if I get nauseous easily. I said no and he sent us into a spiral toward the landing site. It was like a thousand feet of roller coaster. I wasn’t lying when I said I don’t easily get nauseous, but by the time we landed I was plenty nauseous. And pumped on life.

California Soaring is forever ruined as a fun ride.

That's the take off ramp down there!

The most epic of double chin shots.

You just sat under the parachute.

My pilot and I!

Jumped from there. Landed here.

Taste the happy!

Annnnnd that's what I get for asserting myself as first in land instead of sitting under the tent with all the other kids.

I don’t even have words for how fantastic the whole thing was. I would do it again and again and again. After we landed some news crew came over and interviewed my pilot. I stood there and smiled like a goon. Then a truck came to haul us back up the mountain. I happened to sit next to a man who has been participating in the festival as a pilot since it started. He is also one of the pioneers of paragliding and has been doing it since the sport was created. He’s designed and engineered much of the equipment used today. It was so cool hearing his stories about paragliding all over the world. He also informed me that in his 25 years of paragliding, he’s never come across anything like this place and this festival. 

Upon getting back to the top of the hill we learned that our group was the last people who got to go. If we hadn’t asserted ourselves, we wouldn't have gotten to go at all. It was a lucky day!

Best part was that we were able to make it back to our dorms in the same day. A special thanks to the Michaels who were basically the only reason we were able to find where we needed to be. Traveling with Ghanians is pretty much the only way to go. 

This day goes down in the top 3 coolest in my life.