Licanfly: Paragliding Festival

To finish off our time together (Geo was  returning back to France 10days later) we drove a bit more south to Lican Ray a beautiful spot in the lake district surrounded by forest and snow capped volcanoes. We had heard from Nico (a pilot from Santiago) that a paragliding encounter was taking place in Lican Ray over the weekend. When we arrived we saw that indeed a big part of the Chilean paragliding scene was there for the event. A great way to celebrate an end to this paragliding trip across the Andes.

View from the camping

At takeoff

The festival was pretty simple: fly during the day, party at night. A programme made for us :) .
It was perfect to enjoy the free shuttle to takeoff all day (thanks to the organisation).

Nico in flight with volcanoe Villarica in the background

Volcanoe Villarica with the lava flow

On one of the flights I had quite a lot of height over the lake so I decided to practice a little bit of acro. What maneouvre should I try? Hmmm helico is what I was working on so I decided to give it a go. I tried a first one that didn't quite worked. Then I got into the box and went for it another time. I entered a good deep stall and started the rotation. But I wasn't concentrated enough and let the outside of the wing fly too much. Classic error! The half wing surged big time, and collapsed, to end up wrapped aroud the other half of the wing. I looked at the lake (maybe 150m) and at the wing and decided to go for reserve.

As the reserve inflated the wing re-opened. I pulled the wing towards me, to be honest I didn't really looked at which lines I was pulling, I just tried to kill it. Then I was in stabilised descent, so I grabbed my GPS and held it over my head to try not to soak it too much. As I reached the water I was floating thanks to my airbag.
Really quickly some jet-skis and a boat arrived to help me. A few minutes after I was riding a jet ski towards the beach with my rescuer, a beautiful chilean girl. And my wing was foollowing in the boat. Finally I didn't really got time to be scared, everything happenned very quickly and I knew this could happen as I was practicing tricks. I just lost my camera and damaged my GPS, but well, this is the price to pay...
So first reserve in 12 years flying. Acro is definitely tricky and has to be practiced in the good environment :). It can quickly cascade!!

Re-packing with Dennis and Nico

On the last day we got the chance to borrow a tandem from another french travelling guy, Ludo, that we met at the festival. Flying tandem was something that we always wanted to do during the trip but that never worked for different reasons so we were really happy to give it a go.

Thanks Ludo!

Santiago de Chile

Next stop Santiago! We made a tremendous jump forward in our way down south from Calama straight to Santiago in a good 23hours bus.
As we arrived we directly met up with Julio a good friend that Geo had when he satyed for a year studying in Chile. Julio took us around for a quick tour of the city. We visited the central market and the old train station, beutiful buildings made by Eiffel's students. Passed by the famous fruit market of La Vega and ended our walk in the lively neighbourhood of Bellavista for a well deserved beer. The first thing that stroke me in Santiago is how European it was. After these many months travelling through South America and the last months in Bolivia and Peru it really seemed like being back to civilisation. Museums, art centers, metro, big avenues, clean streets and hipster bars it could have been a version of Paris or any big European capital with 30 degrees celsius in the middle of January.
For the first week we stayed at Julio's flat, a chance. He showed us his really cool project of a back-pack, clothes and footwear brand.

Santiago city centre

For a few days we went paragliding at the flying site of Vizcachas. A small take off at the South of the city offering great thermic conditions and a good potential for XC flying. It is pretty amazing to have such flying potential available right next to a capital city!

Vizcachas Take Off

Sailplane passing low over the take off

The take off is managed by a paragliding company and they charge you a small fee to use the spot. It is possible to climb by foot. A nice 20 to 40 min walk. In Santiago the main mountain range is exposed to the west so it is better flown in the afternoon. A classic time for take off is between 2 and 4 p.m. for cross country flying, but expect strong conditions the earlier you go there!
I had a few good flights there fighting in the very stable air with only big bubbles passing through. The flying wasn't particularly enjoyable as it was really strong, but the technicity was interesting and the views over the city and the huge peaks rewarding. TRACK1 TRACK2.

Considering the conditions I didn't take many pictures, but here are the ones from the two flights.

Flight 1:

Residential leaf

Getting to the north of Santiago

Flight 2:

Cerro de Ramón

Santiago City!!!

Northern neighbourhoods of Santiago

Landing in the golf

The reward

I never managed to pass the 30km key point in the cross towards the north, but I think that with experience and some regular flying in the area it is possible to achieve some beautiful flights.

On the 14th my good friend Fred arrived from France to spend with us a couple of weeks. January has been the time for visitors to distract us in our trip. Great to see known faces on this continent!

FRED is HERE!!

La casa Moai

Pebre y Melon con Vino 

Carrete!

We had a good few days partying in Santiago trying the local cocktails:
- THE Terremoto a devil's invention that consist of cheap white wine with a massive scoop of pineapple ice cream and some fernet (a bitter herbal liquor)

- Melon con vino, a yellow Melon filled with white wine and sugar

We had the chance to assist to some great gigs as well. A festival featuring Chico Trujillo. It seemed that the party spirit and the warmth that we had lost in the high Andes was back!

Bonus Pics:

Learning about the future....

Chorillana, a typical dish

Iquique: La Meca del Parapente

We left Bolivia just before new year's eve, hitting the road towards Chile and the city of Iquique. The road leaving the Bolivian altiplano towards the border of Chile was absolutely incredible. Massive volcanoes and colored peaks at more than 4000m was our last view of Bolivia. After that, a long descent started in the direction of the Atacama desert and finally a last drop to the coast and Iquique.

At the border

Down to the desert!

In Iquique we decided to stay at the paragliding pilot nest that is the Flightpark. An hotel constructed out of shipping conteners with a beautiful view at the sea and prime access to the landing zones.

We started straight away with new year's eve which cost us our faithfull radio.

After all the festivities it was time to fly; it is the main activity in Iquique after all. The plan of the day: in the morning fly Alto Hospicio for a few hours of thermic flying and even some possible cross country, land at the flight park, have a nice lunch a little rest and leave to Palo Buque (the massive dune) to fly till sunset. Hard life!

Take Off at Alto Hospicio

After flight treat

The birds, such useful buddies!

I tried for a few days in a row to fly cross country from Alto Hospicio, it was much harder than I expected, it is not only ridge soaring for many kilometres. It is a mix of thermals and dynamic lift (which is weird so close to the coast) and there is some key points to pass, big peaks generating important rotors. With the training, every day I was managing to go a bit further. Finally on the third day I managed to pass the hardest of the points: punta gruessa, this gave me the access to Palo Buque and the rest of the ridge. I flew a bit further than Palo Buque and came back. A nice out and return of 40km. On the way back Geo called me on the radio telling me that my friends from Scotland Sofia and Sebastian had just arrived, so I decided to make a "grand" arrival and land in the flight park. Mission accomplished after about two and a half hours flying I was in the hotel with my friends, a great day! The track

On the ridge coming back from Palo Buque

Full speed on my way to the Flightpark

Landing Home!

The team:

On the evenings in Palo Buque I decided to start to practice helicopters (an acro trick). The first ones that I did were not too bad, I even thought for a moment that it would be quite easy to learn. But it proved to be much harder than I thought! I had a few complicated helicos with way too much oscillation. It is really a hard trick, that requires a lot of concentration and a great deal of finesse. Anyway I managed to do a few and started to get to know some new stuff. To master this kind of trick I should have the opportunity to practice more and maybe a wing more fit for acro.

The evening flying in Palo Buque was some time very turbulent, but we had a few perfect days where it was possible to go play in the so called "mystic dune", a huge dune made out of perfect sand.

We had an amazing time in Iquique, met loads of pilots from different countries an learned many things on the coastal/desert flying.

Bonus Pics:

Les couvre chefs