December 21st & 24th
When I first arrived in Montanita, I decided to walk from
the bus stop to Casa del Sol. It didn’t
look far on Google Maps but that was still probably a mistake with my 50 pound
backpack. Just before I arrived at the
hostel, a local guy pulled up to me on his motorbike and asked me if I was a
paragliding pilot. I noticed that he had
a paragliding t-shirt stretched across his gas tank. He had recognized my paragliding backpack and through my minimal Spanish I
understood that there were a few flying sites nearby and he might go flying
tomorrow. Sweet, that was lucky.
I contacted Chalo (which ironically means “Let’s Go” in
Hindi) the next morning via Whatsapp. He
kept sending me short voice messages about the time and place and other
logistics and I felt bad as I had to enlist the hostel manager Jackson’s
translation abilities numerous times. I
was to take a taxi about 10 minutes south of Montanita to Playa Bruja, or
“Witch Beach”.
Athena, one of the volunteer workers at the hostel, asked if
she could join me to see what it was all about.
Sure, why not? Just before
arriving at the beach, I immediately saw a windsock and some streamers on the
top of a small ridge on the left side of the road. This must be the place. The cab driver was nice and took us up the
hill on a dirt road.
There was a vehicle parked at the top area, which had a
small wooden fence along the front perimeter.
Off to the side and a little bit lower was the main launching spot with
a few patches of mostly worn out Astro turf.
At the back of the slope was a wooden shelter with some benches
underneath. There were a couple of local
pilots there and a couple of women, a mother and her 20 something year old
daughter, who were going to go tandem flying.
I met the guys and Julio was the tandem pilot and Erlin was his assistant. Athena seemed interested in trying it out and they only charged $40 but she doesn’t have much money so I offered to her that I’d pay. “Consider it an early Christmas gift” I told her. She was excited about that and I asked Julio if he could take her after he had flown with the other women. I watched him take off with the first tandem and I have to say that I was impressed with his skill and their professionalism, including safety checks.
I took off next and it was a fun “moon walk” kind of
takeoff, where you’re on your tippy toes and then flying inches and then a few
feet above the ground. Being ridge
soaring by the ocean, the air is smooth and laminar, albeit fairly strong. It was a gorgeous view of the ocean, beach
and shoreline. I really enjoyed flying
with the birds that soared by, especially the pelicans who came by in groups of
6-10 and also the frigates with their long skinny wings.
My first takeoff:
Those little specks are a "squadron" of pelicans" near me. Super cool flying close to them and frigates.
While flying I saw a motorbike arrive and noticed it was Chalo. Seemed like Athena must have mentioned to him about going on a tandem as he pulled out his gear and was getting ready to take her on a flight. I came down to top land so that I could film their launch.
My first landing:
Once they were in the air, I took off again and we flew
around together. After the usual 15-20
minutes of flight time (the standard for most tandem outfits around the world),
they landed and I came in soon after.
Athena loved the flight, but her stomach was feeling a bit queasy, which
is the reason most tandems aren’t longer in duration.
The next few days were overcast which meant that the usual
afternoon sea breeze didn’t really kick in but on Christmas Eve it was a nice
blue sky. I returned to Playa Bruja on
my own, arriving around 12:00 pm. Chalo
said he’d be there a little later for some tandems so I took off and had the
place to myself, well, except for the birds.
There were the pelicans and frigates again but also some red headed
vultures and one bird I didn’t recognize.
It was mostly black but had a bit of white or light grey on the tips of
its feathers. Its wingspan was a bit
smaller than the vultures. I’ll have to
do some more research.
Half an hour into my flight, a solo pilot took to the air,
and I thought it might be Chalo but it turned out to be a younger pilot. After launching, he immediately headed to the
north and crossed a small gap in the ridge which I hadn’t seen the tandems
pilots do on the first day. I kept my
eye on him as he flew about a kilometre away and eventually returned. He came across the gap fairly low but was
able to climb back up. His glider was a
higher performing one than mine plus he was in a more aerodynamic pod harness
so I wasn’t sure if I would also be able to do it. The wind had a slight south component in it
so I knew I’d be fighting it a bit on the journey back but I decided I didn’t have
much to lose, I could always land on the beach and just grab a taxi back to the
hostel.
I crossed the gap and suddenly noticed that there were some
power lines running across the hill about midway up. I decided to be conservative and not cross
over them as it didn’t seem very lifty on this section of the ridge and if I
got caught behind them, I’d be flying into some thorny bushes! After only a few minutes I decided that I
preferred the main ridge and made it back fairly easily.
I saw the tandem pilots greet their passengers by the shelter so I landed to say hello to Chalo. I’m glad I landed when I did as the wind had picked up and there were more whitecaps on the ocean. It took almost a minute of hovering around above the deck before I touched down…kinda fun! I helped the tandems take off with the pilots using what’s called a cobra style technique. I briefly contemplated flying down to the beach to save the walk down the hill but the combination of the stronger wind and landing on sand with my wing caused me to dismiss that idea. It took less than five minutes before I was in a taxi and on my way back to Casa del Sol. Pretty fun flying.
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