It was pretty awesome getting to see the village from the vantage point of a bird, I would definitely recommend everyone try paragliding at least once. Check out the video, and please ignore my dirty red feet. The dirt in Goa is red from high levels of iron and as you can see from the video, it’s EVERYWHERE and stains everything.

Keep scrolling to read about my experience!

How did we get roped into doing this? Most evenings in Goa we watch the sunset on the beach and enjoy a chai. My boyfriend’s, dad’s, friend runs a paragliding business off a cliff next to Shiva Valley – one of the beach shacks we frequent. He stopped by to say hi one night, convinced us to try it, and we made plans to meet him the next day.

I was feeling a little apprehensive, but pretty excited. At that point I had been in India for about 2 months, and my one take away so far was that the only rule was that there were no rules. To be clear Goa is nothing like Thunderdome. Actually it’s a very peaceful and chill place, just extremely unregulated. Jumping off a cliff in the type of environment where anything goes had me a little worried.

I suppressed my fears, that was until we bumped into some friends at Shiva Valley. It was late in the afternoon, but they were still going strong from the party the night before (the party never stops in Goa). Side note, if you are ever in Goa checking out a trance party is a must, even if you are not into that type of music the experience and scene is insane. Tuesdays at Shiva Valley are one of the best parties.

They proceeded to beg us not to go paragliding. Pleading that they didn’t want to see us die and telling us stories of shotty landings leaving people dangling from coconut trees with broken limbs. I was a little shaken and was seriously considering bailing. It was super jarring to have people literally (and when I say literally I mean it in the literal way) begging for us to reconsider.

After a moment of self-reflection, and questioning if this was an appropriate time to YOLO, I figured the guy we were going with was a) still alive, and b) had all his limbs intact and working, so I was liking my odds and decided to go for it. Spoiler alert, we all survived scratch free.

As most things in India, there was no explanation of what was going on. They stuck a helmet on my head made out of styrofoam. I considered asking to wear my motorcycle helmet, but realized if it really came down to it neither would do me much good as we hurtled towards the ground from the sky. Then they strapped me into a harness and said when I say go we are going to run and jump off that cliff, what ever you do don’t stop running. That was it. The whole set up took about a minute, if that. He said go, I ran, and the next thing I knew we were up in the air.