Today, We Fly!
Trip Start
Jan 03, 2007
1
3
18
Trip End
Jan 21, 2007
Otavalo,
Ecuador
Saturday, January 6, 2007
Unlike most latin countries, Ecuadorians seem to go to bed early... This means I was cut off before I could finish my last blog entry last night around 21:00. However, it is earlier now and I've just finished uploading the missing video and pictures... So you may want to go back an entry before reading on. =)
Today, we finally flew! Unfortunately, the wind was in our back once again, but the sky was clear for a change (we could even see the volcano's peak from our hotel room for the very first time!). The sun saved us this morning by heating the hill, thus creating some warm rising air to counter the dominant back wind... This allowed many local pilots to fly downwards safishly (they don't really seem to care about meteorology, even though we are always in one micro-climate or another in Ecuador because of the volcanos)
Everything is Alive!
. All the boys except me managed to safely launch in face wind as well and get their feet wet, so to speak, without incident. By the time it was my turn, the dominant wind got very strong and overcame the rising warm air from the hill and made things extremely dangerous for our guide and I to take off: big rotors everywhere (30-40 km/h) constantly switching directions. After a good wait and me jumping into my wing to pin it down, we finally gave up since it was noon and went to join our colleagues at the landing field next to the lake. The local pilots took Henri's advice and left along with all their tourist passengers!This time, we ate at a small mall in Ibarra and had some great hamburgers with ham and all... The people there seemed quite well off (I think Ibarra is a touristy place to Ecuadorians). It even had a KFC (gross)!
We then spent the afternoon waiting to the wind to die down and eventually left, walked around the giant market which spans many intersecting streets. This is where all the locals gather every Saturday only to buy and sell every day goods (clothing, food, etc.). It was pretty impressive and nice to see so many indigenous locals and no tourists. In half an hour, we are going to be eating beef tongue: a local specialty (pictures will follow soon, I promise)! Tomorrow, we try to fly again (my first hopefully)... Lets hope the wind changes direction.
