Hey everybody, this is a new chapter, I haven't opened one in a while. It's about hang gliding. I went hang gliding. This is one thing that I thought to myself that I would never do, simply because I have actually no statistical basis for that decision other than I guess growing up in Brazil and this is just my guess.
I used to hear in the late 70s and 80s, I used to hear a lot of accidents, especially in Rio, when you hang glide in Rio de Janeiro, what you do is you just jump off this cliff called Pedra da Gavia. Right off Rio de Janeiro, it's a beautiful view, of course, but it's a cliff and it's quite high. So I think if things go wrong and if you're a beginner, I can see, you know, fail accidents happening. There's no way you can recover probably. And I think maybe that's what I had in my mind.
I also had this idea that the wings, right, the hang glider would kind of just fall apart and there's nothing can be done really. So I always stayed away from it until I had the chance and it was completely by coincidence. I was actually on vacation with a family in Outer Banks, North Carolina, in the U.S. to surf, actually was a surfing vacation. But as a matter of fact, they have a school there that offers hang gliding.
And I was wondering where they were going to do the hang gliding because it's on the beach and if you're anything familiar, when you're familiar with Outer Banks, it's almost like a tiny, tiny, thin island that is flat. That's where the Wright brothers did the first flight. So it's flat. There are no mountains. There are no cliffs. There are no rocks. So I was wondering, okay, and I saw the outdoors about, you know, learn to hang glide here. I'm like, how? Where? Right? It's a beach.
So I checked it out. As it turns out that they have dunes and those dunes are not very obviously, they are not super high, but they are high enough to allow you to do a very short flight and to learn safely. And the best thing is, in my mind at least, and I believe that to be true, is, well, if I crash, if I fall, you know, the altitude is not going to be an issue because I'm going to go like, you know, 20 feet. That's I think the highest I did. Speeds are very much under control.
And the best part is it's sand. It's a dune. It's a very soft sand. So again, I'm not saying you wouldn't hurt. You would. But it's slightly better than jumping off a cliff in Rio de Janeiro, right? So that's what kind of, you know, inspired me to give it a try finally. So again, my recommendation for those, and this is the whole purpose of my little podcast here, is to give you recommendations.
If you ever want to try that, well, find a school and find a school where you have some sort of a smooth, low altitude, very low altitude ramps or dunes where you can actually do this safely. It is a blast. Once you take off and it's not very difficult, I'll tell you. It is, you know, relatively, it's a lot easier than I thought. It is, it's such a nice feeling, right? You're flying. I think paragliding is my personal opinion is more interesting.
There is a podcast I recorded about paragliding in the in the Alps, in the Swiss Alps, which was somewhat of an experience, of course. Big different rides, super high altitude, much longer flight. This one, it was just my first level instruction on hang gliding, so much lower attitudes, shorter flights, a lot of instruction and support from the instructors. But again, what a nice feeling. So again, quick recommendation.
If you want to hang glide, there are places and this is completely new to me. I did not know about this, so I'm happy to share it for those interested that offer that lower altitude, you know, smooth ramp for you to take off and land safely, comfortably, and for the instructors to provide you feedback while you are flying. This is a key thing that I absolutely did not expect, right? I thought it was going to have somebody behind me on a tandem flight.
So no, actually what happens is because it's such a low altitude and the dunes will allow you, right? The ramp, they're not very steep and allows them to run side by side. So the way that they ran the class, the first level sort of instruction, is I had two of them, two instructors on one on each side, they will help you take off and they will help you even steer to some extent, right? The hang glider with some ropes on both sides. So that gives you extra confidence and, you know, and control.
But again, more importantly, they will provide you real feedback, right? You need to push it in because you're going to increase your speed or you need to flare, right? And push it out to the glider to actually reduce your speed. So you're going to hear them talking to you real time as they see it. And you're not that high, so you can totally listen to them and actually act. So that was very, very helpful in terms of learning, in terms of feeling good and enjoying that moment.
Now that I, it's one of those things like learning a new word and you never heard before and then you start seeing everywhere, same thing for hang gliding. I never thought this was something possible to have such schools in low altitude, very mild environments to start learning. But they're everywhere, right? The same school that is in Outer Banks, North Carolina is also in New Hampshire. I'm like, where in New Hampshire? Because there are some mountains in New Hampshire, Mount Washington.
My other podcasts about it is in New Hampshire and they have some pretty high peaks there. No, they have the same setup, right? They have some higher mounts that you can jump off and take off and you have the ramps. So it's amazing how now I'm finding those places that maybe I didn't know to look for before I actually saw that outdoor and decided to do some research. But that would be my advice.
It's sort of a hidden jam for me in it open a whole different new sport that I thought it was not going to be reachable because of my early age, you know, scare of hang gliding. That's totally gone now. I'm having fun looking for places now if they offer this or maybe I'll just drive up to New Hampshire and go for my second lesson. And I think it's about in five days worth of lessons you can achieve what they call hang one.
And hang one just allows you to pretty much rent a glider and go have fun by yourself. So that's another goal. Not very difficult to achieve. You just have to find five days and be close to one of those schools. So that's my tip for hang gliding. Again, it was I'm super happy. It was something that I thought was completely, you know, like now I'm not going to do it. But no, I was wrong. There are safe, comfortable options for you to learn how to do it. And then of course, go a little higher.
Why not? Hope you guys enjoyed this one. See you later. Bye.