Back In The High Life Again

It’s hard to believe that I’m nearing the end of my first week in Colombia. Good thing I still have a second week to go.

When I arrived on Sunday, the hostel was practically overflowing with people – from all over. Five days later the crowd has significantly thinned out. In fact, a couple of more people are leaving tomorrow (including my friend Robin from Florida) which I think will leave just one person (Don) from the group that was here when I arrived. And he leaves on Sunday. A few new people have shown up tonight though so it’s not like I’ll have the mountains (and airspace) to myself.

Speaking of the mountains and airspace, I’ve been able to take advantage of both over the past five days with Wednesday and Thursday being the definite highlights.

Monday was spent relearning the basics of paragliding – it had been 4.5 years since I flew in Switzerland so a refresher was definitely needed. I wasn’t really sure what the schedule would be for my training but it turns out my ground school was successful enough on Monday to allow me to proceed to solo flights on Tuesday. This worked out well as Robin had already progressed to solo flights as she had already been here for a week. I had three flights of about 3 minutes each on Tuesday.

As mentioned earlier, Wednesday was a definite highlight. Much like Tuesday, I had three flights in the morning. Unlike Tuesday, I spent a somewhat long time in the air. My first flight on Wednesday was about four minutes. The second flight saw a bit more thermal activity and lasted about 6 minutes. I know, I know … hardly record setting. My third flight was also not record setting, but it was really great – about 70 minutes great!

With some guidance from more than a few large birds as well as my instructor Russell (stationed back at the launch site), I proceeded to fly my way in (and inevitably out) of a variety of thermals. The result had me reaching heights I didn’t expect on just my second day of solo flying. To say it was a totally unexpected flight would be a huge understatement. The only downside was that I didn’t take any photos while I was soaring high above the area. My camera was snugly tucked in my pocket and it proved to be unretrievable – mainly because of its proximity to the handle for the emergency parachute. On the upside, there were a few photos taken from the ground.

Thursday was another surprise as we had our first chance to do some ridge soaring – which is essentially riding the wind that is deflecting upward off the mountain. This was definitely the smoothest air I’d flown in so far – especially considering all the lift that was available. Unlike Wednesday’s flight where it was often a challenge to ride the thermals, the ridge lift was constant and smooth. The result was a very relaxing evening flight. It was a great way to end the day – it would’ve been even better had I not nearly missed the landing zone (I may have slightly underestimate the strength of the headwind) – fortunately I only NEARLY missed the landing zone and still managed to land successfully.

Today was a pretty quiet day for flying. I had four flights but they were all very short (including one VERY ugly landing) as the conditions were less than ideal. On the upside, I’m officially finished with the refresher course and have received my APPI (Association of Paraglider Pilots & Instructors) rating and am free to fly without an instructor present. I can spend the next week working on improving all aspects of my flying. Sounds like a promising week!