Marc Coupes  has always had a taste for extreme sports, sports that cause fear and therefore pumps adrenaline. He tried them all. Bungee jumping, parachute jumping, and others.

How did it start?

Marc’s father was in the army and as a child Marc dreamed to become a pilot.

They were with 3 boys, and they all had dreams about flying and when Marc was 15, his father took the boys to go for a flight with so called’ gliders’, wooden planes that have no engines and glide through the skies. A dream came true - Marc was flying like a bird.

Then, in the army, he made many jumps with parachutes and recalls that the first time he was very scared, but later got used to it.

However, it is not really a flying experience because you basically go from very high back to the earth in almost a straight line.

In the eighties something new was on the block. It combined the old gliders (unpowered planes) with the parachute technique, and was called ‘paragliding’.

The first people trying paragliding were true thrill seekers who jumped of cliffs with their ‘wings’, really NOT knowing if the technique was going to work or not.

For Marc it was his brother who introduced him to the sport. The first time he tried it, his brother just told him to run and keep running of a hill, until he was up in the sky. Not knowing how to land, since nobody explained this he once got back from a flight with broken bones.

Today Marc has made over 1,200 flights around the whole world. He once flew as high as 5,000 meters.

He remembers jumping off the statue of ‘Christo Redemptor’ in Rio de Janeiro, landing on Copacabana beach, calling this an extremely pleasant experience since they got the attention of the whole beach.

In Bali paragliding is difficult because it is difficult to land without difficulty from electricity cables. But in the very South Point of Bali there are some places where it is possible. Anyhow, Marc will continue his hobby, traveling the world, even if it is, like he says himself: “A very dangerous sport”.