GOT WIND? The best time to paraglide in Carmona is during the Amihan or the northeast monsoon season (usually from November to April).
reading the phantom wind is a conundrum for paragliding beginners like me. When is it time to go? Apparently, it’s when birds start gliding around your takeoff area. On the clearing, Buko takes time laying out his wing: a larger-than-life arc of rip-stop nylon sacs, with Kevlar strings neatly dangling from it, connected to the harnesses that will carry both of us up in the air. Rommel is clicking away at the scene. Then, as if on cue, a flock of pigeons race across my eyes. With the wing noticeably inflated, Buko calls me out. He straps us securely in the harnesses. The steep drop in front hisses an invitation. …This is it! Buko starts gunning instructions, “Walk fast, toward the cliff, let the wing fully inflate! We need to go against the wing pull; else we’ll be dragged away in the wrong direction. At the moment you feel the lift, run towards the edge of the cliff. As fast as you can!” Wait. …What? At his signal, Buko and I walk fast. The wing fights our pull as it gathers more air. My heart is pounding savagely. I’m feeling the lift. The lift! “Run!” We run, full force, toward the cliff. Meters before the edge, my feet leave the ground. I shriek.
Ready to take off?
Tandem Paragliding in Carmona flies tourists from ages 3 to 70. Contact Joanne Bawalan of the Municipal Tourism and Information Office (www.carmonagov.net). Flights are at Php2,500 (US$61) per passenger. Lifestyle shop R.O.X. offers lessons: Introduction and Tandem Flight (1 day) at Php3,500 ($85.50); Basic Solo Paragliding Lessons (3 days) at Php15,000 ($366.50); and Lessons for Full Certification (7–10 days) at Php35,000 ($855). E-mail roxadventure@ primergrp.com or contact Buko Raymundo at +63917 8167820.
Flight! With Buko at the helm, we are flying, without the aid of any rigid contraption, at about 300 meters. I am a child again, hooting and swinging my arms and legs, whimsically dodging tree crowns now and then, the view as far as the eye can go! Unfortunately, about five minutes into the trip, vertigo does me in. We have to land sooner than the allotted 15 minutes. Another conundrum. “How do we L-AAAAAGH!-ND? How do we land?” The sudden elevation change squeezes my innards into a tingly bundle. “Do we run across the field? Do we plop down on the grass?” “You just sit down.” Buko cuts my nerves, halflaughing. Paragliders only run across fields in the event of zero-tension upon landing; that is, if there is not enough wind power to prop the wing up until the last millisecond. And so, as gently as Mary Poppins would, we land on the meadow, with cows lounging around, munching on grass. I sit there, eyes to the heavens, laughing, shrieking; the rainbow-colored aerofoil slowly deflating itself onto the ground. n www.philippineairlines.com I 67