Blown Out

Good evening everyone,

Christmas is a Monthly Affair

Today was supposed to be our first flying day at a site in a tiny town called Santa Rosa (10 minutes from Ibarra) about 45 minutes away from Otavalo. As usual, the scenery was extremely beautiful, yet different from Quito... Much drier... As we drove up to the launch at 2720 meters above sea level, the vegetation evolved from lush palm trees, to a see of cacti and ENORMOUS aloe vera plants (seriously, some are as big a VW Beetle! and the, I assume, male plant has a 12 foot stalk sticking out of it with fruit on the end), to a few measly shrubs and lots of grass and volcanic ash soil. The condors were out and some smaller birds too, so there was signs of strong thermal activity... Unfortunately for us, the wind was coming from behind the mountain and the thermal activity failed to generate a sufficiently strong dynamic air current up the slope to overcome the strong back wind. We spent most of the day hiding from the SCORCHING sunshine (I think you can use any stone as a stove around noon) and talking about paragliding. There was a nice lake at the bottom and lots of indigenous locals working their lands... As seems to be the tendency in third-worldish countries, the women do all the work and manage the home finances... To be fair, the men did seem to lay a brick every hour or so... Hehehe. They did, however, serve us very good fried whole fish, fresh from the lake! Anyway, I've attached a sample of the scenery, launch site, a video of the musical garbage trucks found in Otavalo (you can hear it many streets down and we first thought it was an ice cream truck!) and a video of our diner entertainment. Enjoy! We are crossing our fingers for our first flights tomorrow at the same site.

Fresh Fried Lake Fish Lunch

Oh, we also ate at the local VERY touristy Ecuadorian restaurant, complete with a clone of the live Byward Market Ecuador band! It was the very first that didn't taste bland (we are always scooping up the local salsa into our meals to compensate): I had chicken in garlic, pepper and cheese sauce... YES, SAUCE! As a Quebecer, I was VERY pleased and it actually tasted GREAT!

On a side note, we did receive Benoit's missing wing today around noon... It must've continued on to Guayaquil or something because the flights from the USA only come in at night here. So, all is well.  =)

Giant Aloe Vera Plants

Jean-Roch Prepares for his Maiden Flight

South View

The Fantastic Musical Garbage Truck

Touristy Ecuadorian Restaurant

When 30 Just Isn't Enough!