Apr 28 2007

time to reflect

so the other day, i was having a discussion with someone about my greatest fears when i admitted to being petrified of heights… which took me back to being in turkey. the story kind of goes like this…

it was late, quite a few glasses of wine had been consumed and i had been approached by one of the instructors from the local paragliding school to sign up to do a paraglide from the babadag mountain. At the time, it seemed like an amazing idea, so there and then i paid up and arranged to do it two days later. the next morning, i woke up, opened one eye, felt the greatest fear of my life but couldn’t quite place why and then the realisation hit! what had i done?

things got worse when later that day, i was sunbathing by the pool at the foot of the mountain when literally every 20 minutes someone would paraglide overhead. i’m not quite sure why i hadn’t noticed people doing it before then, but it served to act as a constant reminder all day long. that night i got no sleep, felt like i was going to throw up and generally believed that my life was about to end. that was when i hatched a plan. i would simply get to the top of the mountain, let everyone do their paraglide and then when it got to my turn, i would tell them that i had changed my mind and drive back down to the hotel.

the next day, i got into the jeep and set off for the top of babadag. no one had thought to warn me that it was a single dirt track to the top of the mountain and that other vehicles would also be coming in the opposite direction. to say that the jeep nearly fell off of the edge of the cliff more than once would sound like an exhaggeration, but was in fact more true than i care to admit.

by the time that i eventually got to the top of the mountain, i had decided it would be safer for me to jump off the edge of a cliff than risk a journey back to the base of the mountain in the jeep. my legs barely held me up for me to get into the jump suit and i’d love to say i was really brave. i wasn’t. i was a complete and utter sissy but i did it nonetheless and boy was i proud by the time i got to the bottom. i got back to work and gloated to everyone that i had done a paraglide, i might have forgotten to tell them the circumstances in which i did it though… oops!