By telling us your country of residence we are able to provide you with the most relevant travel insurance information.
Please note that not all content is translated or available to residents of all countries. Contact us for full details.
Shares
We’ve all heard: "If your friends jumped off a cliff, would you follow them?". The obvious answer is “No”. Weeeeell, technically...It may not be such a bad idea. My friend and I went on a spontaneous trip to Madeira island, Portugal. After our exams, we felt like we deserved a bit of sun in our life since we had been under the beautiful grey skies of the Netherland for a while now. The trip, in general, was amazing. We had delicious Portuguese food, we discovered an obsession for pastel de nata, we walked so much our feet hurt the next week. But, the days went by and we had already done every touristy thing we wanted to do. We were exhausted from the stress of our exams and wanted to do something really special. I wanted to do something that I had never done during any of my trips and so did he. We woke up one day refusing to be bored and wanted to make the most out of a trip. We were thinking about going to see the dolphins or just spend a day at the beach when we passed a picture of people canyoning. My friend jokingly asked me if I was down to jump off cliffs in weird outfits. Naturally, I said yes. He started laughing, thinking I was in on the joke, then stopped when he realized that I was serious. “Nooooo way”, was the only thing he said before I grabbed his hand and forced him into the reception with me. We’re both pretty sporty people, but more of indoor sport, aka going to the gym and doing things with minimal risk. But I’ve loved rock climbing and kite surfing for a long time so shrugged and said: “It can’t be that hard, we’ll just go with the beginners, we got this”. Turns out, in the beginner’s group were no other actual beginners than us. Aside from the professional instructors, everyone had already done lots of canyoning before and that is how we found out we actually signed up with the intermediates. My friend was confused but agreed to keep on following the group. I was thrilled and so excited it rubbed off on him. We hiked for a few miles, slid on some rocks -we were really slow and not the best at it- and then found the waterfalls. A few of the waterfalls we had to climb down with ropes and it was relatively safe as long as you followed the instructions. However, at one point, we had to jump a 15 meters high cliff with rocks at the bottom and without any rope to cling on. My friend became really concerned, so we let everyone go before us. He proceeded to tell me why this is a bad idea and why we should just leave and go all the way back. I refused and told him that we came all this way already and done it, almost perfectly. It was then our turn and I decided to go before him: “if I can make it, so can you. But only one way to find out. I volunteer as tribute”. The reference made him laugh but before he could realize what happened I had already jumped. I landed in the cold water. It was freezing. The sun had warmed our suits and the shock of getting in the cold water jolted all my senses. I looked back and saw him jumping too. I took a leap into the unknown, and so did he. Once he resurfaced on top of the water, we both started to scream of joy. We had done it. He faced his fears and I was pumped with adrenaline. Truth is, I came back home with two little rock dug deep in my palms from leaning on rocks, but I also brought incredible memories with me that I will cherish forever. Seeing the river, the trees, feeling the calm and the adrenaline was more than I was hoping for. Conclusion? If your friends jump off a cliff, maybe in some cases it’s worth following them.