Paragliding - A week long Sojourn

This week long break from work and routing was one of the most relaxing of all breaks that i remember taking. The trip to Kamshet between Pune and Lonavala came at a good time, hey i had not taken a break for the last 3 months.

How did Paragliding happen ?
Well flying was a long standing desire and i was on the lookout for avenues to pursue the same. Among Manali & Pune (the 2 main places where flying happens in India) the latter was closer to home and an unchartered location for me. I went to this website (http://www.templepilots.com/) and got inspired by what the couple Avi & Anita were doing. I also had a chat with a couple of people who had done paragliding earlier and before i knew it the deal was finalized. I had signed up for both the P1 & P2 courses , running a duration of 7 days.

Location and Experiences

I was put up at Japalouppe equestrian centre (also called More Stud Farm.), this is located around 30 Kms from Pune towards lonavala (near Talegaon). Here i had dormitory type of accommodation , sharing it with the instructors and the other co-pilots who had come down for the course.
This was a very beautiful place full of dogs of all breeds and i had a really fun time playing with them. i also got down to some serious Horse riding sessions, and is it painfull on the ass !!
Times spent chatting away at the sitout, sleeping on the 'charpai', going for a walk throught the entire 30 acres of the farm , making havoc in the name of cooking in Aarthi's kitchen, playing around with the dogs & pups and spending numerous hours talking and dreaming about paragliding gave a feeling of a continuous 'high' in the place.
[Pics: Horse Riding Session , Pups Playing Around , Newly Born Kitten ]

A Typical day

A day is typically divided into 4 parts.

The Morning session - Waking up at 6AM. And leave for the flying site by 7:30. Mornings typically used to be for shoring up the basics and learning new techniques for ground handling of the glider. It was a continuous learning process. We went on till around 10 AM after which the sun got unbearably hot and the rumbling in the tummy too loud to ignore. It was usually followed by breakfast either at the location itself or at base camp. It was typically followed by a debrief session for around 30 min.

The lunch Period - This was a time for resting, relaxation, story telling and most importantly Theory classes. The Theory on various topics of aerodynamics and flying were taught primarily by Dhawal the assistant instructor, but were complimented by words of advice from Avi the chief instructor (He basically had left Indian Air Force after doing his NDA and being a pilot to pursue his love of flying and traveling at leisure).
We usually settled in for a short siesta to get the much required rest or pic up the phones to catch up with the running world. (You had no sense of date or time at this place)

Evening Session – We usually get ready to leave by 3:00PM. Reach the flying location. And have the session till it becomes dark. Evenings the winds used to be stronger and more favorable for flying. Also it becomes progressively cool and you get to see the great sunset. This was followed by yet another debrief , to make us aware of our mistakes and learn from others.

Dinner Time – Was a time of fun and frolic. Carom board game. Chatting away on all topics under the sun. We also took over the kitchen a couple of times. It served as a good time to unwind and know more about the various people in the group. We had people who were apparel designers, IT professionals, advertisement designers, Businessmen, A farmer ! , senior sales people among others in the group. Apart from this each of the instructors had their own stories on how the came to be.