subject: Bungee Jumping One Thing To Try Before You Die [print this page] Extreme Sports have not been my idea of a good enjoyment. I am somewhat of a safe guy, a person who believes in playing sports that allows you to be close to the ground like soccer, golf, basketball etc. The very thought of strapping a cord to my body and jumping off a high-rise building, cliff or a bridge makes me feel awful and in my humble opinion, not at all a good idea of enjoyment. The moment you jump, the cord goes, Boing, boing and you swing like a pendulum in mid air. Call it altophobia, but I feel I would end up in a hospital bed with my legs and hands patched up in plasters.
I know there are a lot of extreme sports like skydiving, base jumping, free-diving, wing suit flying, etc and many people try these sports and get hooked up to them for lifetime. I did not know why and sometimes when I see such extreme sports shows on ESPN Star Sports, I would change the channel and look for something else. I was so annoyed that I even thought of contacting my cable service provider ATT Uverse Cable to remove this channel from my subscription. But life took a u-turn and somehow this sport got the better of me.
My buddies and I usually plan to go to some place during the dry weekends like clubs, countryside, and get to watch some on-field sports. But as faith would prevail, one of my friends got hooked up with bungee jumping when he went on a vacation with his girlfriend to Hawaii. He started telling me about his experience and the feeling he had as soon as he reached down to the surface. Yeah, right! I was thinking. When he was explaining to me the bungee jumping experience, I was picturing myself bouncing like a yo-yo from a tall cliff and lying on a hospital bed with cuts and bruises.
I tried real hard to convince my friends not to go for it, but as always, these guys showed me their third ear. All of them got intoxicated with the mind blowing experience that my friend narrated and I was telling myself this weekend trip was going to be my last. The faithful day arrived and we reached the bungee jumping site, The Bridge to Nowhere in California. It is one of the famous bungee jumping sites in US. I was thinking about sharing some nice blows with my friend who had brought up this idea. He even brought the list of other bungee jumping sites like in Alabama, Florida, Colorado, Connecticut, etc. It looked like he had planned an entire month of bungee jumping activity and became a crazy fanatic of this sport.
The instructor gave us some detailed tips and informed on how the procedure was. We all were strapped with a cord around our body that looked like a safety harness. Seeing me inspecting the ropes, aroused a kind of amusement for my friends. You know I was trying to check the safety of the rope by pulling it hard and even trying to bite it with my teeth. Seeing me do this, the instructor told me to relax as the ropes were factory produced, with an elastic shock cord and was 100% safe. One by one, my friends took the leap to the bottom and ultimately it was my turn.
I went to the edge of the bridge, the launch point and I started having butterflies in my stomach. Looking below at the ground, which I thought was a thousand meters down, I almost passed out and I felt like the floor was going to split open any moment. Somehow I summoned up enough courage and, voila, here you go, soldier, I took the leap. I remembered the days when I learnt to dive into swimming pool when I used hit the brakes as soon as I reached the edge. But there at least you hit the water. It felt like my heart was in my mouth and I felt my heart was beating so fast that it sounded like a motor fixed into your chest. It was awesome and I felt I was flying. Even though the strong wind was hurting my eyes, the near death feeling that I was going through just excited me. I hung around for some time, swaying top to bottom, left to right. Finally I was grounded. After the jump, I came back to the top for one more time.
It was then I knew why many people tried bungee jumping. I was initially not interested, but now Im just kind of hooked up to it and every one of my friends too. Loads of fun and laughter mixed with fear and surprise. I thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it.
