Wandergliding: Visiting Macpara

February 4^th-5^th, 2024

I took the train from Prague to Ostrava, about a three-and-a-half-hour trip. I decided to splurge and went business class, for a whole ten Euros extra. That meant I was in a private compartment with three other people. It was pretty nice, but not super deluxe. Unfortunately, the window was quite dirty, but I still got a good view of the Czech countryside.

The fancy old part of the Prague train station, which is easy to miss as the modern part is a floor below and you don't have to pass through this part.

Business class on the train:

And the beer only cost 1 Euro...for a big one!

Arriving in Ostrava, I switched to a local train to head south to Frydlant nad Ostravici (meaning the town Frydland next to the river Ostravici). The pension (guesthouse) that I was staying at was less than ten minutes from the station by walking, very convenient. I was greeted by the blonde-haired owner in her early fifties named Kamila. It was a nice room and would do fine for the next four nights.

Passing through a typical Czech town:

Arriving in Frydlant nad Ostravici:

My home for the next four nights:

The next morning, a Monday, I was to head about 40 kilometres south to another town called Roznov pod Rashotem, where one of my paragliding suppliers, Macpara, was located. There was no direct train to get there but I bought a ticket to get halfway there and then figured I’d get an Uber or a taxi to take me the rest of the way. Arriving in the small town of Frenstadt, I pulled out my phone and fired up the Uber app to order a ride. Then I waited, and waited, and waited. It didn’t seem like there were any Uber drivers in this town. Outside of the small train station, I couldn’t find a taxi. I checked my phone and saw that there was a company about a kilometre away, towards downtown. I had data for my cell phone, but no credit to make a phone call, so I just decided to hike to town.

Walking towards the town centre:

Arriving in the main square, I could not locate the taxi company. What to do now? It was already after 10 am and I had hoped to be at Macpara by 10:30 at the latest. Luckily, I spotted a Tourist Information Centre and went in to ask for help. There were two nice ladies in there who called a taxi for me.

The cute main square:

Reaching Roznov, the taxi driver, who didn’t speak much English, wanted to take me to the train station but I told him to go to the address that I had given him, and he had entered into his phone. The town seemed to be an old industrial town from the Communist era. There was a tall smokestack surrounded by industrial buildings and a slew of pipes running from one building to the next. Google Maps took us right into the heart of this ugly infrastructure. It then took us to a slightly wrong location, so we backtracked a bit and found the road we needed for Macpara. It seemed like and odd place for a paragliding company to be situated, with 6-10 storey high buildings lining the narrow lane. But I saw the Macpara sign, paid the driver and started to walk up the five industrial-sized storeys to their office.

The old industrial area:

Entering Macpara, I was greeted by Pavla, the front office woman with whom I deal with the most over emails with regards to ordering, paying and receiving equipment. She was super friendly, and it was nice to put a face to a name. We chatted for a little bit before the owner Petr came out and met me. He’s been flying paragliders since the late 1980s (almost when paragliders were invented) and started manufacturing them around 1993. He was a wealth of knowledge and very friendly.

The reception:

Demo harnesses in the reception area:

The door into the production area:

Petr gave me a tour of their facilities. Their main production is done in Sri Lanka, but they have the ability to produce paragliders at this location, primarily making prototypes. It was cool to see the CNC type cutting and marking machine. There were the ladies working on the sewing machines and others testing the trim of paragliders. We were interrupted numerous times by Petr’s busy phone, but I had told him to continue doing business as I had all day, and I know that I’m a pretty small dealer for Macpara.

A CNC cutting machine:

Organizing the cut pieces:

The machine in action:

Some of the sewing stations:

The trimming area (putting lines on gliders and testing their lengths):

Finished stock:

After the tour, I thanked him for his time but he insisted that we go out for lunch. We enjoyed some Vietnamese food and got to know each other better. I thought he was just going to drop me off at the train station and go back to work but he had to travel to Valasske Mezirici, the town that I would have gone through had I tried to come all to the way to the Macpara office by train. He had something to pick up there, so that gave us more time to chat. He dropped me at the train station and then I caught a train back to Frydlant nad Ostravici.

The countryside on the train back:

That evening, I went to the same restaurant as the previous night as the food had been good, plus I liked the atmosphere, and it was only a 4-minute walk from the pension. While there, I was chatting on WhatsApp with a paragliding student of mine (another Petr) from 3-4 years ago who lives in Canada, but is originally from the Czech Republic. On his recommendation, I ordered a typical Czech dish which was some kind of dry roast beef, these “Viennese dumplings” which are made of potatoes, flour and egg yolks, and it was all surrounded by a thick gravy which covered the rest of the plate. Petr warned me that it was “heavy food”, and he wasn’t kidding. I found it a bit bland and definitely heavy in the stomach, so I was unable to finish it. Oh well, when in Rome…

The restaurant called "Restaurace Imrvére"...don't ask me out to pronounce it.