We went paragliding!!!
Yup, we decided to be spontaneous and try out paragliding during our last day in Macedonia. Actually, it was on the back of our minds to give it a try since we saw folks jumping off Mount Vodna when driving into the city (Skopje)…
But because the weather was cold (around 4-5 degrees) and there was some snowfall on the surrounding mountain peaks, we assumed there weren’t going to be any flights. But on our last day the sun was out and it was a warm 12 degrees so we thought to give it a shot.
Around 1pm we messaged www.2glide.com Tandem Paragliding, and asked if it was possible to fly. They said “YES” and we booked our flight for 3.45pm on the same day…
Watch a bit of our flight prep here:
Stefan was first to jump…actually, you have to run OFF THE MOUNTAIN…
So yeah, basically it’s just like a plane take off. You have to “taxi” first and then keep on running till you’re off the mountain.
Stefan’s first try was a bit exciting. He did a bit of rolling on the grass after an unsuccessful first try but the second try was a success and he flew off the mountain without any trouble.
I was so excited!
I also had a bit of a false start the first try. My para-sail didn’t open enough, or something. I’m not sure why my first try was stopped as I was facing forward and focusing on running…but my pilot told me to stop running..he adjusted the lines a bit, and then it was time to run again.
I was told to start running…again! I ran and while the sails unfurled it felt like I had 50kgs of something holding me back and I was taking one step forward and possibly 2 steps back…I was told to keep on trying to run…this time I was able to run (a little bit) and then poof! I was running in the air and my pilot was telling me I could stop “running” and he adjusted my position so I was “sitting” in my harness.
I really had no preconceived ideas of how parasailing would go so I just followed instructions and had a great time flying over Skopje and feeling a bird. 😀
I was the lucky one as my pilot had a GoPro so you can watch my complete flight here. Sadly, I only have footage of Stefan’s take off as we lost our GoPro and haven’t had time to purchase our replacement.
But yeah, everyone should try paragliding at least once!
Now I’m trying to convince Stefan to let me parachute out of a plane 😛