Paragliding Algonodales

January 17^th-20^th, 2025

I arrived back in Spain mid afternoon on the 16^th and drove back to the marina at Linea de Concepción, right near Gibraltar, where I stayed before heading to Morocco.  My motivation, restocking on British goodies.  I walked over to Gibraltar’s Morrisons grocery store for some ch-ch-ch…chips, chocolate & cheese!

 

The next morning I started to drive to Algodonales, a small town with a population of around 5000, a few hours north and inland from the coast.  It is known as one of the hot spots for paragliding in Spain, if not the world, so I had to go and check it out, even though the weather forecast didn’t look great for the next few days.

 

I drove along the coast for the first half of the journey and then climbed a curvy mountainous road just beside the Sierras de las Nieves National Park (nieve = snow).

Way in the distance is the Rock of Gibraltar...check the zoomed in photo after this one.

It was nice and sunny when I arrived in Algodonales, but very windy, too windy for paragliding.  I needed to find the grocery store to buy a few things for lunch, so I started to drive into town.  I had seen on my camping app that the town is notorious for narrow lanes and tight corners, which I immediately found out was true.  I barely squeezed the campervan around one corner, after a car that turned onto my road in the opposite direction had backed up to let me by.  Wisely, I parked Octi as soon as I could on a wider street on the edge of town and decided to walk.

One of many narrow streets in Algodonales.

 

Before hitting the store, I thought it would be wise to wander around, check out the town but more importantly check out the 4-5 paragliding companies that I could see on Google Maps.  Incredible.  That many schools in this little town?!?  Crazy.

The church in the main square was the tallest building in town.

Looking the other way in the main square.

The first place I walked by, Zero Gravity, had a storefront but was closed.  The next three addresses that I passed by just looked like someone’s home, which I’m sure they were.  Perhaps there is a paragliding business at that location, it just wasn’t obvious and they were not operating today.  The only other place that had a brick-and-mortar place was a paragliding repair shop.  Wow, that really shows how busy this place can be for paragliding when there’s a repair shop in town!

The view from the other side of town from where I parked...it is a lovely area.

Once I grabbed my groceries, I headed to the campground which had quite the high-tech entry system.  There was a QR code to open a website to fill out your details and payment…yes, I know, not groundbreaking…but what I thought was cool that I was then bounced to a webpage, clicked a button, and the gate automatically opened for me.

The campground wasn't terribly busy.

I hid out in Octi for the rest of the windy day and the following rainy day.  I did send a message to Zero Gravity via their website to see if they might be flying the following day as the forecast looked much more promising.  Amazingly, I received a response just a few hours later from the main instructor, Jose, and he told me to come to the shop the next morning at 10:30.

Octi on the first evening in Algodonales.

Entering the paragliding office, I first met Luisma, who I later found out was the other instructor.  Jose owns the business, but Luisma has been teaching there for seven years I believe.  I also met a 59-year-old English fellow named Adam who has been flying for 3-4 years.  He learned with Zero Gravity and has since moved to Algodonales and volunteers with them, helping with driving and some basic coaching with students.

 

Speaking of students, Jose told me that they had one new student who hadn’t done her first flight yet but had done a few days of training.  Julia, a young blonde woman, was from the Lake Tahoe area, on the Nevada side.  She later told me that she was a big skier and mountain biker and quite the independent, confident person.  I didn’t notice it until later, but she had stunning eyes, one blue and one brown.

 

A former student, Alek, who learned with Zero Gravity about 3-4 months earlier had returned from his home in Ireland, although he’s originally Polish, to get some more flights and training done.

 

The group of six of us hopped in the school’s van and started a 25-minute drive to the day’s launch choice, a site called Montellano.  Jose had told me that one reason that Algodonales is so popular with paragliding is that they have 4-5 launches to choose from, facing in different directions.  With the day’s forecast, he figured that Montellano, mainly a ridge soaring site, would be our best option.

The launch was located on a ridge that was about 250 meters above the valley.  There was some old looking astroturf near the edge which is always nice for keeping wings clean and to avoid snagging lines on rocks or weeds. 

Checking out the new site.

The wind was too light to soar when we first arrived, so Julia did some forward launching practice, starting back from the astroturf and stopping before she reached the edge while Alek did a bit of ground handling.  As we “parawaited”, some griffon vultures cruised by, occasionally flapping.  If they have to flap, you know that it’s not on yet for us.

Jose working with Alek.

There were no other pilots when we first arrived, but during the next couple of hours that we hung out, a number of vans showed up with mainly German pilots it seemed.  Soon the wind picked up and the first “wind dummies” took off.  The first one did end up landing below at the LZ, but the next few guys were able to stay up.

Luisma took Julia on a few tandems for training, where she did a lot of the flying, just not the takeoff.  Here they are, about to takeoff with Adam holding up their wing.

Eventually I decided it was time for me to fly.  By this time there were probably about 15 wings in the sky, and later I couldn’t help but remark to Jose and Luisma that this would be considered a busy day in Canada, to which they replied that this was quiet for here.

Back in Canada, I mainly do thermal flying, where you rely on hot air rising to climb up in the sky.  This site was more about ridge flying.  The wind hits the hill, it is deflected upwards and you sit in that lift band.  Ridge flying is more chill flying than thermal flying and I enjoyed the change.  There was the odd light thermal that cruised up the hillside or was popping off a bit away from the ridge which made it even more interesting.

About 10 minutes into my flight. 

At times I had to keep my head on a swivel with lots of traffic, but then I cruised to the far end of the ridge to the west and enjoyed some open space.  Then it was time to go all the way to the other end, which must have been about 2 kilometres away.

By myself at the east end.

Just off the east end of the ridge, there was a small hill with a castle on top of it.  To reach it, you had to fly over a bit of a gap where you would likely lose height since the wind was not being deflected upwards.  I had watched Luisma and Julia in the tandem make it over and back while I was near the launch, but I wasn’t sure whether to go for it or not.  If I landed down below there, it might be a while until Adam came to pick me up and I didn’t want to miss out on some flying time.

Humming and hawing...should I go for it?

Yeah, it was easy...I think I lost all of 15 meters of height getting there.  Sorry for the "Barney Rubble" with my thumb in the shot!

Coming back from the castle, I hopped the gap with no problem and ridge soared this one section for a while to try and gain more altitude before trying to head back to launch.  The wind had shifted about 45 degrees and now I would have a bigger section to cross where I was pretty sure that I wouldn’t receive much lift. 

 

Unfortunately, my suspicions were correct.  I made it back to the launch area, but I was halfway down the ridge.  I put up a battle, almost kicking some treetops, but ended up having to peel off and go to the landing zone.  I had hoped to top land at the takeoff, which is what most of the pilots did…including Alek, who did his first ever top landing! 

 

Oh well, you win some, you lose some.  I landed and kited my wing over to the road and that’s when I heard my name.  Turns out that Jose had run into the same predicament and had landed about 10 minutes before me.  Now I didn’t feel so bad!  Alek got a kick out of it…he top landed, while two instructors didn’t make it.

Adam came and picked us up and we went back up to launch.  Luisma and Julia went for one more tandem, but I had had enough.  An hour later it was time to head back to Algodonales as it was already passed 5 pm.  What a good day!

I returned the next morning to Zero Gravity, and Jose proposed going to a different site due to different wind conditions.  It was another ridge soaring site and he figured it wouldn’t be flyable for a few hours, so he did a bit of classroom work with Julia and Alek.  I sat in on the class which was great to hear a different instructor teach curriculum that I teach.  I learned a few different ways to convey some theories.

The site wasn’t too far from a small city called Ronda and it was about the same drivetime as yesterday.  When we arrived, it was definitely windier than yesterday, and a lot colder!  Luisma pulled out a solo wing and took off to test the conditions for the students.  He landed in the designated field off to the right and radioed his assessment back to Jose.  Julia was going to do her first flight!

The view from Ronda la Vieja's launch.

Julia ready to go.

Julia's takeoff.

Julia hanging out in the sky.

She's heading out to land...she's on the horizon, just a bit to the right of the middle of the pic, with Jose in the foreground coaching her.

Next Alek was up.

Alek's takeoff.

I had a nice flight…it’s always great to try a new site.  I didn’t stay in the air for too long as it was chilly, but I also wanted to top land and maybe takeoff again.  Jose had briefed me and Alek about the approach to take to avoid rotor from one section of the launch.  Well, I didn’t go far enough over to the left and did find myself in a bit of turbulent air, but I was able to manage it and landed safely.  Jose coached Alek on his top landing, and it was much smoother.

During my flight.

The GoPro doesn't do it justice (it makes everything look small), but I had this griffon vulture fly close by.

The wind was picking up so we headed off for some lunch in a nearby town called Setenil, hoping to return afterwards to lighter winds.  Well, this restaurant was super slow.  I was under the impression that the Spaniards like to “make a meal out of a meal” but even Jose and Luisma were complaining that it took too long.

 

Almost two hours later, we headed back to the site, but the wind had gained in strength.  Luisma took off, once again to check the air, and almost immediately he radioed that it was not good for the students.  It was even colder than earlier so I had no desire to fly either.  Luisma landed down below and when we picked him up, he said that the air was turbulent and not fun.

Instead, even though it was approaching 4 o’clock already, we headed to a small hill for Julia to practice some forward launching and Alek was going to do some reverse ground handling.  I decided to pull out my wing and practice some cobra launching, which I don’t often get to do back in Canada as we don’t often get consistent, strong wind like here.

What a beautiful spot to ground handle!

I'm up on the hill, looking back at Alek and the van (hard to see).

It was a fun session.  I had a few little flights, used the wing to pull me up the hillside and just enjoyed mucking around.  Speaking of muck, the hill was fallow and had been plowed and was relatively hard mud, but it had some clay in it, so it was super sticky on the boots.

Jose, Luisma and Julia walking back to the van while Alek packs up.

We arrived back in Algodonales after 6 pm, all happy, but tired.  The forecast looked rainy for the next 2-3 days so I said my good-byes to everyone and wished them the best…it was a fun few days!

Driving in Morocco

I thought I’d just write a short entry about driving in Morocco.  Many foreigners would be trepidatious about driving in a developing country, but I have to say that driving in Morocco wasn’t bad at all.  Here are a few topics:

-       Quality of the roads – Surprisingly the roads are quite good in general.  The highways are above average I would say, with very few potholes.  The roads in cities were excellent too.  However, I did pass through a few towns with poor roads with big potholes.  There was one village, on my way to Merzouga, where the roads were unpaved and a few huge puddles spanned width of the street.  It was hard to tell how deep they were.  A 10 year-old boy vigorously waved at me and was trying to get me to follow him down a dirt lane to the right.  I ignored him and took my chances with the water, driving along the side of them as best as I could.  He came running back and after I rolled down my window, he told me he would guide me.  There were a few turns down some narrow laneways which caused me to slow down to a crawl to make sure Octi could squeak through.  Once I was safely through, I gave the helpful kid some money for his efforts.

Lanes – Many Moroccans seem to not care about lane delineation and like to straddle the lanes…especially the older drivers.  Unfortunately, Octi’s horn isn’t working so I didn’t have a way to get them to move over so I had to be hypervigilant and patient. 

Lanes...they're just suggestions right?!?

Getting In and Out of Big Cities – This was a big surprise.  I was really concerned about how difficult it was going to be to navigate cities like Tangiers, Rabat, Casablanca and Marrakesh.  The first three were super easy with good thoroughfares getting me in and out with ease.  Marrakesh was a bit of a different story as there was a lot of road construction going on, but I’ve definitely experienced worse.

Speedbumps – Oh boy, watch out for some of these…rarely is there warning of their presence by a sign or stripes painted on them.  I hit a few doozies, although I’d give the speedbump award to Uganda.  I was on a bus ride in that country where I was getting a few inches of airtime off my seat in the back of the bus!

Speed limits – For some reason, all speed limits in Morocco are even numbered – 20, 40, 60, 80, 100.  I never drove in any odd numbered speed limit zones.  I wonder if they’re superstitious.

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Traffic Police – This stood out more than any of the other items I’ve mentioned.  I have never been in a country with so many speed traps!  There were a few speed cameras, but the number of policeman checkpoints, most of which were utilizing radar guns, was stunning.  I may have seen more manned speed traps in Morocco than all the rest of my life combined!  It was not unusual to see between 6-10 of them in one day of 2-3 hours of driving.  They mainly hung out at roundabouts.

  

So, I was very cautious about my speed and kept an eye on it like a hawk…but somehow, I still got a speeding ticket!  I was flagged down by one of the three cops situated just outside a small village.  He asked in French for my driver’s licence and vehicle registration and told me that I was driving 71 km/h in a 60 zone.  I wasn’t sure if I missed the 60 sign as I had been in an 80 zone, or if I just didn’t slow down fast enough.  Thankfully it was only a 150 dirham fine…about $21 CAD.

My speeding ticket.  At least I got a written copy and knew that the money wasn't just going into the cop's pocket.

I was pulled over two other times, but not for speeding.  One time the cop just checked my driver’s licence and then mentioned that one of my two licence plates on the back of Octi was missing a screw, so it was hanging a bit sideways.  I knew that, it had been like that for a few days, but it couldn’t fall off as the loose side was wedged against the door by the ladder. 

 

The other time was kind of funny.  I was pulled over by a couple of motorcycle cops who were parked just outside of the city of Agadir.  I knew that I wasn’t speeding and I didn’t even see them holding a radar gun.  One cop approached Octi as I rolled down the window and he held up his phone which showed a picture of WD-40.  He asked me if I had any, which unfortunately I didn’t.  I gather they had some problem with one of their bikes.  I got a chuckle out of that one!

The Blue City of Chefchaouen

January 15^th, 2026 

Chefchaouen, a small city of around 50,000 people, would attract tourists due to its location amongst the cedar and pine tree covered mountains of northern Morocco, but many foreigners are drawn to the municipality due to another reason…the colour blue.

Looking down at the medina from just outside of the campground.

This guy, who was quite friendly, joined me just after I came out of the campground.  He showed me a shortcut to enter the medina as he engaged in small talk.  I suspected that he had alterior motives and sure enough he did.  At first he asked if I'd like to come and see his shop, but I declined, saying that I had no plans on buying anything.  Then he asked if I smoked, and pulled out a chunk of light brown hash.  I again told him, no thanks.  He offered to give me a bit, free of charge, but he wouldn't take no so I had to tell him about my incident in India and that I didn't even want to touch it.  I still don't think he quite got it, but after we passed through an entrance through the kasbah walls into the medina, he went on his own way.  This area seems to be a "Hash Haven" as I had another 4-5 men offer me hash and/or to come and see their farm while I walked around the medina...all before 11 am!

  

Most buildings in the medina of Chefchaouen are painted in some shade of blue.  The reason why is somewhat unclear.  The most popular theory is that after WWII, when the Jewish community in the area grew as people fled Nazi persecution, blue was painted on the walls, floors and steps as a religious practice, to represent the colour of the sky and connect the city to heaven and God.

Other theories say that the walls were painted to keep mosquitos away or reduce heat in the summer, although I would think that white would be even better. Regardless of the reason it started, it’s likely that it’s now tourism that keeps the practice of painting the walls which is still done once or twice a year.  I have to admit that I travelled to Chefchaouen for this reason.

I’m not a photographer, but I found myself snapping pics almost everywhere…so you’ll have to put up with a bunch of photos in this blog entry.

I liked this little "hobbit door".

This is one of the view bits of artwork that was not all blue!

There seemed to be more shops than tourists.

I asked a couple of Japanese women who were doing a photoshoot of each other if they'd take a photo of me if I took some of the two of them.  Amazingly one of the ladies had just been in Whistler in Canada a few months ago.

I popped out of the medina to go to the post office...but then had to go back in to see more of it.

This lead to a deadend, but it did make for a good photo.

The main square in the middle of the medina.

And there was a kasbah in the main square.

They also had an Africa Cup of Nations "Watch Party" area in the main square.  The AFCON is down to the semi-finals and Morocco is still in it!

Shops, shops and more shops.

There were some spots with signs asking for a donation for photographs...fair enough, especially if the locals have made an effort to make it photogenic.

Two kids!  The little boy was enjoying petting this young, black goat.

There's a little waterfall hiding in there.

I walked part way up the hill on the other side of the river to get a view back of the blue medina.

Back to the blue.

I liked the "cumi hat" on that mountain ahead.

There were some gorgeous views on my way north.

After walking around for about 90 minutes, I headed back to the campground, had a shower and got on the road.  Tomorrow I’m booked on a ferry back to Spain from the Tanger Med port.  I only had about an hour and a half to drive to get to a spot where I’d stay for the night.

I stopped at this beach just south of a small city called Fnideq.  There were some fancy resorts around this beach.  I parked here for a few hours, did some blogging and went for a walk on the beach.

Here's Octi's last overnight spot in Morocco, which was at a gas service station just north of Fnideq.  The first night in Morocco I slept at a service station so it seemed fitting to do the same on my last night, having completed a big counterclockwise circle around this wonderful country.

I just missed it...but that's a peacock's tailfeathers on the left side of the petrol island!

There was a restaurant as part of the service station, so I decided to eat there.  Well, it was nothing to write home about with the biggest thing I’ll remember was the noisiness of the 2-3 staff members watching videos on their phones behind the counter!  Even though I was parked fairly close to the highway, I did have a decent night’s sleep.

The next morning I caught the 10 am ferry, which was only an hour late leaving (compared to the four hour delay on the ferry coming to Morocco).

There was a brief yet incredible looking rainbow at the Tanger Med ferry terminal.

I spent almost a month in Morocco and had a fabulous time.

Shukran Morocco!