October 22, 2015
I’ve been in the same place for several days now, but I haven’t posted anything and haven’t turned the tracker on, so I started getting emails asking if I was alright. So I figured I’d better post something.
First off, yes, I’m fine. On my “to do” list when I started planning this trip was to learn to paraglide in Colombia or Peru. I decided on Colombia Paragliding in Bucaramanga. They have a hostel right next door to the fly site, so it’s quick and easy. Well, quick anyway.
You have to look close to see the dot near the center of the photo. Photo taken from the launch site.
After two days of lessons and another tandem flight with an instructor, I did three solo flights today. It’s important to note that there is no “bunny hill” here; your first take off is off a hill into the air and the ground drops away quickly until you are about 800 feet above the ground. The conditions here are very predictable, and each morning is very calm, followed by stronger (intermediate level) winds from about 11am until mid to late afternoon, when it calms down again.
I’m exhausted from the first two days of fighting with the wing while on the ground, but the practice is obviously necessary. I’ll be here for another week before I head south. I’ll try to post a couple of more times as I progress, and I have Sunday off from school so I plan to go exploring….maybe find the road from this side (Giron) to Zapatoca after all.
Are you able to land back at the take off point?
With a little more experience, yes. Altitude to return to the launch site isn’t a problem; I was 800 feet over it this morning. But it’s fairly small, with trees on two sides and a building on the third side, and it’s not very long either, so accuracy on approach is important. I’m not there yet. At this point, I’m happy to land at the downhill site. Soon, hopefully…
You a brave man, don’t let up, it’s got to be very satisfying.
http://www.twtex.com/forums/showthread.php?t=105954 Pat, when u get a chance, ck out our Mektrek 2015 ride report of last weekend, we missed u although I’m the only one from our May group who attended the entire 4 day ride, Philip couldn’t get away, Thomas had bike issues back in Dallas, Pete made it down to the border but had bike issues and never crossed over and Doug did his own mex trek alone for 10 days before our ride ( he rode to Guanajuato, r14 and the golden triangle on his new versys but still made it back to Galeana for our last night) so me and Doug did ride from Galeana to the border together the last day. I’m happy to say that I did add some new routes under my belt and lead the off-roaders most of the time, thou hot lost a few times but quickly rocovered and overall made 22 new riding buddies and lots of memorable short adventures.
Hey Z, Glad you made the MexTrek ride and were able to show the crew some good routes. Sorry I missed it but Colombia calls! (And Ecuador, and Peru, and Chile, and Bolivia….). Sounds like a good time was had by all. Looking forward to another Galeana ride in the future.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H_xurUHsmFg&feature=youtu.be This a 3 min video of our ride that Mike from new braunfels made for us, I’m the only guy with the green Kawasaki, happy trails my friend.