Cusco

We arrived in Cusco by night after a very long bus ride through the Andes. Luckily we easily found a good budget accomodation close to the main market (our headquarter).

On the first day we walked through the beautiful Inca capital. Cusco is pretty different to other Peruvian cities we had been through so far; very clean, beautiful buildings, a lot of histoy. This must be due to the touristic nature of the city. But nevertheless very pleasant. 

Plaza de Armas

Off the mainstreets, there are a lot of small cobbled alleys transformed into markets in the daytime.

Of course the idea was once again to get airborne. We contacted Patrick a Peruvian/French pilot. Patrick was super enthusiastic to take us flying. It is always great to get a warm welcome from a fellow pilot. He took us to the main flying site: Cerro Sacro located at about 40 minutes drive north-west of Cusco. The site is situated just at the end of a big plateau (near the village of Chinchero) dropping into the sacred valley. A great view!

Going flying

Take off

Waiting for a window

The first day we had pretty dodgy conditions with a lot of tail wind. I found a little window and took off. I had a pretty good flight boating around for about half an hour. A good first flight in turbulent air. In the end I am the only one who flew this day.

The sacred valley

Looking at take off

On the next day we came back to the same spot with the intention to fly cross country. A team of french pilots joined us as they were on a trip in Peru with light weight wings. The day looked great, but the conditions on take off were pretty similar to the previous day. A lot of tail wind with a few windows. I didn't waste time and got ready to take off on the first window.

In the air the conditions were quite turbulent again but the thermals were working a little bit better. After about half an hour I found a good one that got me up to 5400m! So I decided to try to start a cross country going towards Cusco.

Looking towards Cusco

The sky is looking good!

Tempting but not feeling like going over the big mountains

Crossing the big plateau I found another good thermal that got me up to 5838m, 2000m above take off, my altitude record so far!

Cusco in the distance

But the sinks are as strong as the uplifts and reaching the mountains in spite of an awesome looking sky I found myself low and in a position to land.

Puray Lake

On landing I got helped to pack by some really nice locals. The kids were really funny and especially two cute little girls.

Packing Crew 

Funny faces

In the end I didn't managed to do the big cross country that I wanted, but still some good altitude and awesome views. The track

In the evening of the same day we went back to the site where we met with the local guru Franz Schilter. We had a nice chat about flying in SA and waited for the wind to drop off. As the wind was really strong we used a alternative take off at half slope.
Franz took off in howling wind and we followed him a bit later. It was going up everywhere with uplift up to 4m/s and altitude up to 4100m at sunset! The views with the setting sun were great. 

Patrick and I

View from the lower take off

Franz and Patrick in the sunset

We boated around for a bit and then I went for a sort of dynamic cross country suggested by Franz: jumping into the sacred valley to the east then recover some altitude fly over some Inca ruins !!! and go land on the plateau near Chinchero on the road to Cusco in order to get back home easily. The flight was really technical with this much wind, but very different to the usual cross country, Still learning!
The track

Geo intented pretty much the same flight but landed into the sacred valley, he got back home about 3 hours after me...

Machoqolqa Ruins from the sky

End of a great day

We had one more flight on the same site. Again pretty tricky conditions.

Me and my little friend

In spite of being still in the rainy season we managed to fly every day we wanted to. A lot of luck! The Cerro Sacro site is pretty tricky but can offer some great cross country opportunities for advanced pilots. I would like to give a big big thanks to Patrick who made our flying in Cusco a lot of fun!

We decided not to visit the Machu Pichu for budget reasons, we prefered to keep our money to discover some other awesome places and go fly other great mountains. And also, what's the point of visiting Machu Pichu from the ground when you can fly over it :) : see the unbelievable flight by Nick Neynens. TRACK!!!!

Bonus Pics:

Cusco city