Feeling small as a speck of dust I’ve entered the area of the worlds biggest mountains, the playground of eagles and vultures. I have entered the closest I can possibly get to paradise before death. A Steppe Eagle has just attacked me.

Clinging on to a weak almost non-existing thermal I saw him climbing in the middle of the valley and decided to fly out and join him. He was the expert after all and his thermal could save me from landing on the best day I had seen after two weeks in Nepal’s flying paradise number one, Pokhara.

He was already well above me when my vario started talking, and concentrating on thermalling with one hand and preparing my camera with the other I didn’t notice where he had gone.

 

Flying Gin’s new performance wing, the Zoom, I’ve got plenty of time to concentrate on the scenery and my camera, and with the Steppe Eagle out of sight I search the sky to get him into my viewfinder.

Next thing I see is two angry eyes, a beak and two sets of claws coming right at me. I yell, kick my legs and pull hard on the brakes to scare him off and just before the big bang he turns off, uses the speed to gain lots of height and the next second he turns, tucks in his wings and races towards my glider with the speed of a canon ball. Again I flap my wings like a scared chicken and just before impact he spreads out his wings and glides off without touching my glider.

I could have kicked myself. I had the best option in the world to take photos of an attacking eagle, but all I’ve done is scream and shout and I must admit that I have reacted more to the instinct of a scared human than to the instinct a photographer. But the game is not over. He’s coming back.


This time with less speed and a lot less aggressiveness. He starts thermalling again and I follow. I whistle just to let him know that I’m a friendly chap with no intention of conquering his territory and his pulse seems to have come to a more balanced level. So has mine. After a few turns he is well above me, but with a twist of his wings he slows down his speed and stalls his way through the air to come down to my level. Curious, friendly and so beautiful that my heart almost bursts. Finally I get my act together and take some photos. In divine harmony we keep each other company all the way to cloud base and here our paths split. I fly in the direction of Annapurna and the deep valleys of the Himalayas and he turns the other way towards the friendly area of Pokhara.

Mentally I can’t get much higher, but I keep thermalling and smile at the fact that lots of people need to smoke to get high. It’s just because they don’t fly.