Paragliding in Lima

October 24, 2021

I’m not a big fan of cities, especially large ones like Lima with a population of over 10 million!  One out of three Peruvians live in the city, crazy.  However, I did book a week in Lima because of the amazing paragliding site right in the city, by the ocean.  I used to live in Victoria and loved flying the seaside ridge along Dallas Road.  Well the site here in the Miraflores neighborhood is like that, times 10.  Instead of being 15-40 feet high, the ridge must be 3-400 feet.  Add to that a long row of tall buildings, some over 25 storeys high, you’ve got a recipe for some amazing flights.

 

The first day that in Lima, in the Miraflores neighborhood, I walked 15 minutes from my Airbnb to the “Parapuerto” (the paragliding airport).  There was a small brick fence with a closed gate preventing the general public from strolling around the take off/landing zone.  Carlos, a young Peruvian in his 20s came over and started asking me some questions in Spanish including whether I had a copy of my licence.  I had yet to get a sim card so there wasn’t a way for me to show him it.  Did I have a radio?  No, I stupidly didn’t bring one from Canada, trying to save weight and also thinking that likely no one wouldn’t use them down here anyways.  I explained that I was an instructor back in Canada, so he let me in.  The launch had Astro turf, like we installed at our launch in Lumby over the summer although it was hard packed underneath.  They had a small rectangular section outlined by a white line as an area to hang out and prepare your wing.  I dropped my bag there and thankfully an American named Jens who was originally from California but now lives here came up and gave me a site briefing.

 The Miraflores coastline:

It turned out that Carlos’ English was actually pretty good, definitely better than my Spanish, and we chatted before and after I had a flight.  He told me that he has a part time job coming down to the aeropuerto most days from 2-5pm and every 15-30 minutes he takes a wind reading and reports his observations on a Whatsapp group so that other pilots know if it’s flyable or not.  He gets paid all of $200/month (do the math, a pretty low hourly rate) but he enjoys doing it and it gets him out flying a lot too.

 The view from the Parapuerto:

I prepared my gear for a flight and Carlos’ last wind reading was 30 km/h.  That’s pretty strong for paragliding and if that was the wind speed back in Lumby, I definitely wouldn’t even be considering flying.  However, this is laminar airflow from the ocean so there doesn’t tend to be much gustiness to it…still, it was going to be interesting getting the wing above my head.  Once it’s above your head, you’re usually good to go, but to get it there you must bring it through the power zone where it’s like a sail on a boat and all the wind is hitting it and it can drag you backwards.

 

On my first attempt I got yanked pretty good, pulled backwards and slammed on the ground.  I was able to kill the wing quickly but I felt like I landed pretty hard, and awkwardly on my right foot.  The next inflation was fine, I kited it for a bit and then I was off for a 45 minute flight.  What a cool site!  There were lots of people walking along the cliffside, lots of traffic on the expressway hundreds of feet below, and lots of windows of apartments and hotel rooms to peer into.  I saw one place that looked like they had a full on bar in it even though it looked like a private residence.  I probably travelled along a 3-4 kilometer stretch.

 

Stupidly, in my haste of leaving Canada, I didn’t bring any gloves nor my GoPro camera.  I sure would have liked to have filmed what I was experiencing.  Later, it felt as though the wind was abating a bit and I noticed that other pilots were landing and I was the last one in the sky.  Jens had given me a run down on landing in this strong wind.  You had to approach the LZ from the side and have your body below the ridge, and your wing above it as you would get popped up but now this wasn’t necessary.  I made one pass and I was actually too low so I circled back, gained a bit more altitude and tried again.  Well, I never got the pop up I expected and I just eked in at the height of the LZ for a landing.  What a great intro flight to the site.

 

These videos are from a few days later.  Just shows you how dynamic it is.  There's one young pilot, Sebastian, who supposedly learned most of his skills from YouTube.  He was always there and wow, world class.  He was doing acro maneuvers like SATs, Misty Flips, back flying, helicos and more.  It was impressive and made me feel like a beginner!

While packing up there was a young boy, only 11 years old, kiting a wing.  His dad Martin had been flying and I talked with both of them.  Turns out they had been living in Sooke (near Victoria) for a few years but had moved back to Peru due to the pandemic.  Maui, the boy, already paraglides and he loves to surf too…what a cool kid.

 Martin and Maui:

I was stoked to get a flight in on my first day as now anymore flights are just a bonus…but I have a week so I hope there will be more!

 

That night my big toe of my right foot began to throb and show some bruising.  Damn, did I break my toe on day 1?!?  I put some ice on it, took some Ibuprofen and luckily over the next few days it seemed fine.

Hola Peru!

 October 23^rd, 2021

After a year’s hiatus of travelling thanks to Covid, I decided that my next destination Wandergliding would be Peru.  Last year I merely hung out in Victoria, which was great, but it was time to knock another country or two off of my list.  Most people immediately think of Machu Picchu when Peru is mentioned.  It hasn’t been a high priority on my bucket list but paragliding in Lima sure was so why not…Vamos!

Prior to leaving Canada I had to get a Covid test 72 hours before boarding the plane.  It was hard to know whether that was 3 days before getting on the plane from Kelowna to Toronto where I had a 17 hour layover, or from hopping on the jet from Toronto out of Canada.  I hedged my bets and got one 70 hours before the flight out of Toronto but the results should be ready before I leave Kelowna.  It was my first Covid test, and hopefully my last.  The guy at the drugstore in Toronto was pretty gentle but man did my eyes water, so much so that I had to close my eyes as the tears welled up.  He finished one nostril in what seemed to be an excruciatingly long 15 seconds.  I was going to ask for a reprieve before tackling the other side, but he just went at it and I just thought “Well, let’s get it over with”.  Thankfully my results were returned within 24 hours and it was negative.

 

My flying buddy Bala drove me to the airport and it was a direct flight out to Taranna (a slang way of saying Toronto).  It was a nice flight out, although cloudy over the best bit, the Rockies.  I was a bit shocked at one point when I saw a plane whipping past in the opposite direction about 2 kilometres away.  I was near the wing, and it appeared as thought it was at the same altitude.  If you know anything about aviation, eastbound planes fly at odd thousands while westbound are at even thousands.  Perhaps they were a thousand feet below us, but it sure didn’t look like it!

Somewhere over Manitoba:

As we approached Toronto, a few young teenage girls in the row behind me said some interesting things.  “Is that the ocean?” – speaking of Lake Ontario.  “I think it’s the Pacific.”  I was a bit gobsmacked as we just flew 4 hours away from the Pacific.  I didn’t say anything.  But then one of them said something rather prophetic…  Down below were cookie cutter suburbs where the houses were all similar and packed together.  “That looks like a prison world down there.”  I thought yah girl, I think you’re right on that one…all of those people tied down to mortgages that causes them to have to put up with commuting in dense traffic everyday to pay them off.  I couldn’t help but smile a bit.

Arriving in Toronto, the CN Tower and downtown is way off in the distance:

The layover in TO was on purpose so I could catch up with one of my best friends through high school and university, Slick, and hopefully another good buddy, Sid.  Slick picked me up and brought be back to his place in Kitchener.  Later, Sid and his little dog Comet came by, and it was great to catch up with those guys.  We stayed up until about 1 am which was later than I had anticipated seeing that we had to get up at 5:30 am in order for me to catch my 10 am flight.

The next flight was with Panama’s Copa Airlines all the way to Panama City where I had a short layover before hopping down to Lima.  The flights headed pretty much straight south from Toronto although Peru is one hour behind or two hours ahead of BC.  I arrived in the early evening and it took at least an hour to get through immigration.  I was asked for proof of my Covid test but I was surprised that they didn’t ask if I was vaccinated.  Additionally, the immigration officer didn’t even ask how long I planned to stay.  That was interesting since when I booked my flight, I had done some cursory research as to how long I could stay in Peru and whether I needed a visa.  Canadians don’t require one and it seemed that a six month stay was fine.  However, before the trip but after I booked my ticket, I spoke to my friend Lisa who is in Peru (I met her 7-8 years ago when I was stuck in Goa) and she stated that I’d likely be told I can only stay 90 days.  Uh oh…I had booked a return ticket for 95 days after my arrival date.  This had caused me a slight bit of panic but then I decided that I would fly to Ecuador for about a month in the middle of my trip which would solve the problem.  I originally wanted to go to both countries but Lisa told me that the land borders were closed and with Covid so that just seemed like an unnecessary complication.  Now I could visit both but it actually hadn’t been necessary for me to do so.  Perhaps a bit of serendipity.

The Panamanian coast line.  Panama City is hiding in the distance.  I was there in 2015 and it's amazing how many skyscrapers there are.

About to board the plane to Lima:

After grabbing my backpack from the baggage area, I planned on getting a sim card so that I could contact my Airbnb host Sheyla.  It was the first time staying at an Airbnb.  I approached a little both for Claro, the most popular phone carrier in Peru.  With my broken Spanglish I tried to ask for a sim but the woman said in Spanish that I’d have to do that in the city…damn.  I tried to connect to the airport’s Wi-Fi to contact Sheyla but I had technical difficulties connecting to the Airbnb webpage.  Well, I had the address so I decided to just go for it and got a taxi into Miraflores, the posh seaside neighbourhood which would be my home for the next week. 

From reading the reviews of the place on Airbnb, I knew that it was on a closed off street that only allowed pedestrians so the taxi driver got me as close as possible, but I still was unsure of where the building was and it was dark out.  I made sure that the taxi remained while I asked a security in the street for help and thankfully he knew where I should go.  There was a front desk guard in the foyer who didn’t speak any English, but he understood that I was staying in the Airbnb, gave me three keys on a ring and told me to go up to the 17^th and top floor of the building.   I tried each key and eventually got the door open but was then presented with a predicament.  There were four rooms: A, B, C and D and I had no idea which one was mine and so I began trying each key on each door (felt like I was in a game show!).  Well behind door C some woman called out from inside.  “Disculpe, soy Dave por Airbnb” I tried to respond.  It was only a bit after 9 pm but she didn’t sound interested in opening her door to help me out.  I returned to the front desk and luckily a young woman was just coming in the building and the doorman asked Fatima to help me out.  Turns out she lived in room B and the owner Sheyla is in D so she got me sorted.  My room was A.  The room was just like in the pictures and it looked great.  The last few weeks at the flight park were quite hectic with the last students finishing up, closing the park and packing for the trip so I hadn’t had much time to do any planning of my itinerary apart from arriving in Lima so I now had a week to relax, do some planning and hopefully some paragliding!

My home for the week:

A "sunset" view from my room a few nights later:

Hola Peru!