The dream of flying

How long have the Man wished to fly? Probably from the moment the humans watched a bird and wondered How?

There are thousands of tales, legends, stories, myths that talk about Man's dream of flying. It is something that has been inside us from the very beginning.

No paragliding? Let's do something else!

It was raining yesterday and we couldn't fly. We had seven students in the paragliding course for beginners and after a couple of hours spent in aerodynamics and meteorology lessons, they started to be tired, so we wanted to do something fun for the guys; we decided to visit "La Cueva de la Pileta" (Cave of the Pool in English).

The cave has some of the most famous cave paintings of Europe, and it is possible to visit part of the cave with a guide. The number of visitors per day is strictly limited; there are no electric lights inside the cave; the visitors must carry a lantern and the path to follow is narrow and slippery.

The entrance to the cave is located on the top of the mountains and the visitors must walk following a very inclined path to the very top; when we were climbing up to the top we could observe a dozen of vultures soaring in front of the entrance of the cave, taking advantage of the dynamic lift created by the strong wind.

After a short briefing with the guide, we could start the visit: The cave is big, sometimes the ceilings are 60 meters high and at some points extremely narrow passages. There are small lakes, and everywhere beautiful stalactites and stalagmites.

We saw Palaeolithic paintings of horses, bulls, and goats from 25.000-30.000 years ago. We also could see the paint of a big fish and even a sea dog!

A man with wings!

The Neolithic paintings were more simple and schematics, some of them just black lines.

And suddenly, the guide showed us a special painting: the representation of a man, a man with wings!
We recognized the head, the body and two legs (well, three in fact...) and two arms with big wings.

The guide said that there is another very similar cave painting in Yellowstone (USA), dated at the same time and that may be the representation of the shaman, the witch of the tribe. But then I remembered the vultures we saw flying in front of the cave and I liked to think that no, it is not a sorcerer, not a healer, but already the first men who lived in these mountains, who saw the vultures flying over them, they dreamed of being bird-men, with wings, and with the power to fly.

And nowadays, thousands of years later, we can do it, with our paragliders, in the same place, above the same mountains they lived. It was like a premonition! At least, I like to believe it.