January 17th - February 22nd, 2006
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January 21st

Got up and made another giant mango smoothie with frozen bananas. We packed up for two days and drove down the mesa to spend the morning at Andres' apartment in North Bucaramanga which is a really nice neighborhood. I got my posts made. We ordered two taxis for Richi, Annie, Andres, Willie and I to get to the top of the ridge.

Willie is a longtime local and was great to fly with. Malaña is an advanced launch (P4). The shortest most bizarre one I have seen yet. You lay your wing out on the street above and walk down to the next level and hook in.

Locals are happy to assist with holding the wing up to catch the wind. Once the wing is up, you have about 3 steps until the edge. My new wing is has been launching superbly. I launched and joined Willy (yellow wing) and the vultures for some fun.

I circled over launch for over an hour trying to get enough altitude to make the city crossing. Willy was able to start his crossing but I chose to stay and try to get higher.

Richi radioed me that it will start getting stronger the closer we get to mid-day so I should think about bailing out into the soccer stadium about a mile out (pictured). So I spent the next twenty minutes on glide to the LZ taking pictures and movies.

I am having fun learning to getting to know my new wing. I put the Ozone Vulcan (DHV 2) through the test today. It was both Thermic and Dynamic air. It was a little rough in some places but the new vulcan handles the turbulence well. A major upgrade in overall performance. Thank you Jake! I have yet to really do a long XC flight. I'm sure I will soon.

The view from the air of Malaña launch.

That evening we went to a neighbors high rise penthouse roof for a family BBQ. Richi is having so much fun catching up with all the people he went to high school and college with. They haven't seen him in 15 years. People are always stopping him in the streets. Its funny. The family owns a restaurant on the corner. We ate there on day 2 for lunch. Nice place. Impressively busy looking from the roof 12 stories up. I forgot my camera at Andres'. We ate plenty of good BBQ ribs and yucca. Yum. Of course there was plenty of Aguardiente to do shots of. Most of Richi's friends speak english so it was a good social. Great view of the stars here too.

January 22nd

Sunday is a rest and relaxation day in Colombia so appropriately slept in and recovered from the massive amounts of meat and drinks consumed. Richi and I walked to the corner store for some juice. It was a nice mid-day hike through the hills of his old neighborhood. A good day to get caught up on some freelance work. We ordered Colombian Chinese for lunch. The egg rolls are beyond huge. For dinner we had Caldo which is a good soup with an egg cooked in it. yum.

January 23rd

Another day to get things done. Instead of flying we are visiting banks and notaries to get Richi and Annie's new property nailed down. While they were busy doing business, I went to the hotel next door and used the internet. I have been more comfortable walking the streets of B/manga by myself. I walked around and got some fruit and some lunch. Empanadas and cervesa make a good treat for a quick lunch. After my first week I am starting to think in español a little more. Walking around where no one speaks english is good for my spanish. The next few days promise to be exciting with a trip to some new sites and some revisits to last weeks. Richi and I spent our free time in the evening conversing about his site eparaglide.com. We plan to give it a facelift and convert it to a Colombian based business. From what I have seen and heard from previous visitors, this promises to become a very popular vacation site for pilots and non-pilots alike.

Someday we will land here at Campestre's resort on the mesa when we decide to thermal up over the mesa launch instead of landing down in the canyon.

January 24th & 25th

No flying on these days. Just nailing down the paperwork on the property and making repairs to the power steering on the vehicle. Lots of driving around and waiting at the Campestre Resort. A good place to catch up on internet stuff while munching on their buffet. Richi and I are thinking that next time we fly the canyon we should thermal up over the mesa instead of down to the bottom. That sounds awesome because the XC possibilities are very exciting.

January 26th

Flew the Ruitoque site in the AM for the first time. It was supposed to be a thermal day but extra clouds put a damper on that. So after my first sled ride of the trip we decided to go visit Richi's friend in Ruitoque for his 45th birthday party. What a cool pad. It is amazing, some of the coolest places that are tucked away around here.

A very nice house with pool and sauna. We went swimming and BBQ 'd steak with Yucca. I met some more of Richi's long time friends from school days. They are all very friendly and most of them have spent time in the US so their english was bueno.

I learned to play the billiards game that uses 3 balls and no pockets. Difficult but these guys were masters. I sunned by the pool and watched the many vultures circling in thermals with high altitude sun dogs (rainbow colored). Being up in the mountains like this makes for a lot of clouds. Every night there is lightning far in the distance. Too far to even hear. There is a soda called Colombiana that is very good. I have noticed that everything that has sugar in it tastes like the things we American's used to drink in the 70's before artificial sweeteners came along. Sweet!

January 27th

Taking a 3-day trip south to Barichara and surrounding fly sites. Wow! The drive down was amazing. I saw everything from Coffee to Tobacco to even bigger Papayas than I have ever seen before. The culture and the towns were much different than a few miles north. There is even a delicacy found nowhere else in Colombia, nor in the world. It is the Hormigas Culonas which means ant with a big ass. They remove the heads, wings and the legs and consume the rest fried. "They say" that they are an aphrodisiac. I have yet to try one but have vowed to try them before I leave. The other visiting pilots liked them.

We stopped along the way on the other side of the canyon. I am pointing at Richi and Annie's property with the launch site on the top of the Mesa de los Santos. Next we stopped at a very popular restaurant on top of the ridge. We had a feast of different meats and caldo soup with arepa, yucca and salsa. The drive just continued to get better as we passed into the country. Richi joked "So how do you like the dangerous country of Colombia"? I laughed because everything was so peaceful and beautiful. The people have a slight German influence from the 1800's. They came for the tobacco. There are many souvenir shops that I plan to visit. Richi and Annie say that this is the place to shop in San Gil (right). The streets are similar to San Fransisco with the big hills. I bought a nice hammock for $15 among other things (surprise).

We then continued to our destination. A town that according to Richi is the most beautiful in Colombia. Barichara. He is right. I feel like I just stepped into the movie "Romancing the Stone". The architecture is mostly composed of the surrounding indigenous red rock. Even the streets and sidewalks. Lots of artists from around the world live here and there are a lot of paintings and sculptures to see.

We arrived at our house. For the cost of about $7 each, we have a beautiful house to ourselves. The center has an open roof so its like you are still outside. I hung my hammock under the open sky and chilled until we went to check out the launch. I am going to take a lot of pictures. This place is awesome!

The Mission Santa Barbara pictured right, is near launch. There are a lot of sculptures and parks surrounding the mission. The whole town sits on the edge of a mesa. What's wild is that all of these towns are very close as the bird flies. But due to the extreme terrain there is a lot of travel time between them.

This site has been designated P4 (advanced) because of the need for a strong forward cliff launch in no wind on an uphill slope. Also you need to thermal up and land back on the mesa rather than landing down in the hot, thorny "booga booga" land where you must hike out to the road. There are lots of thorny plants to watch out for.

After touring launch we ventured down into the valley to the small town of Guane. Most towns have the typical town square with a church and park. It reminds me of Valle de Bravo in Mexico. We scoped a possible LZ in the nearby soccer field.

On return to Barichara we saw a kid ridding a cross between a donkey and a horse. We liked his hat and stopped to ask for a photo. That night we ate at what the locals call McDonalds. In actuality it was a street side stand that served some different and original food. It is quite popular with the locals.


We love empanadas with Aji (salsa) and Aguila (Eagle) beer.

January 28th

Wow! What a beautiful morning. I snapped this shot of our open living room and my new hammock. The plants are neat. We went for an early morning walk around town. I took a lot of photos. This is a great area for artists and photographers. We ate a kingly breakfast at another hotel then headed to the launch.

I waited for my cycle and launched nicely over the cliff. There weren't many vultures to mark the lift so I actually had to work to find those thermals. Richi and I both thought we might get flushed at one point but we found some light lift and with some nice flat turns managed to get over launch for a top landing (touchdown pictured). I got about 1,000' over for a great view of the town. No pics because I was workin it. We will be back here for sure with the next group which arrives February 2nd.

Mid-day! Its time to hit the pool! For once the water is so warm I can dive in without the shock of 60 degree water. This pool was probably a nice 70-80 degrees. So after a few laps and a refreshment we packed up and headed to the next fly site in the even smaller town of Curiti. It was a dynamic site with a top landing and plenty of fields to land in below. Richi and I layed out for a flight and Annie snapped this shot below...



The wind was blowing too hard so we just watched the local tandem pilot fly his clients. He had some helpers for landing so he didn't get dragged. It was about 12-17mph and even more above.

So we went to town and had dinner in the square. Pizza! I had some handmade hawaiian pizza from a stand in the town square. I ate 2 pieces with a beer. This was another great town for shopping. Everything is very cheap.

Then a friend of Richi's suggested we stay at the hotel he was staying in on top of the hill. Wow what a great place. Very comfortable with a great view of Curiti. Including a kingly breakfast all for about $15. After 4 days without connectivity, Richi and I went to the local internet establishment. It is difficult to get our laptops connected out here in the boonies. Most employees know nothing of how to assist us. I had to take the ethernet and copy the settings from one of their computers to get on. It takes a lot of troubleshooting in the country but I managed.

January 29th

Arose early to get on the road back to the canyon. We are going to fly from the other side of the canyon. There are plans to have a tram built here within the year. That will make flying the canyon even better because it takes an hour each way to retrieve pilots at the bottom.

Overcast made for a sled ride but a 4,000' slender isn't all that bad. I was hoping to thermal up to the mesa and land close to the ranch but no sun makes for good sink. Oh well. Next time. When the next group gets here thursday we will do it all over again. Barichara, Curiti, la mesa, and of course Ruitoque. Annie was kind enough to retrieve us at the bottom of the canyon. It is so very hot down there but we had happy landings and plenty of water.

Much gracias to Annie for taking these photos!

On the way back up the canyon we stopped at the tienda for some empanadas, churizos, and cervesas. They had the spiciest salsa I've had on the whole trip. Yummy! Richi was like "How do eat that"? I said it runs in the family. Makes me feel alive!

January 30th

Spending the morning at Campestre on the internet freelancing. We decided to ditch the morning flying for time on the internet. We have been away for a while and a lot of work has piled up for all of us. After lunch we scoped out a hotel close to Ruitoque for the arriving pilots on thursday. Nice place with a stream, pool and cabanas. The plan is a few days here in Bucaramanga flying Ruitoque and staying at Campestre, then up to the mesa to fly the canyon for a few days and chill at the ranch, then south to Barichara, Curiti, and the other side of the canyon.

Time for some afternoon flying at Las Aguilas (the eagles) in Ruitoque. What a great day to play. You can fly this site until dark. Mostly dynamic with top landings but there was one thermal marked by vultures that took me higher than I have been at that site. Richi said "I thought you were heading for the club". Which is the Campestre hotel with the 18th hole LZ. So now I know when I have enough altitude for next time. What a beautiful sunset. Thanks again to Annie for taking the photos. She radioed to me to fly in front of the sunset for these great shots.

January 31st

Spending the day at Campestre hotel while Richi runs errands. I did some freelancing and watched the Paragliders flying at Ruitoque. It was a good day, the three that I saw were getting some good altitude.

No wings in this shot, but it shows the length of the ridge (maybe a mile).

January 17th - February 22nd, 2006
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