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The Top Five Paragliding Sites in Cape Town
Cape Town has some of the most beautiful views in the world, and there is no better way to experience these views then paragliding in and around Cape Town.
Paragliding is an extreme sport that opens up a whole new world of amazing experiences. A paragliding flight can be as easy as driving to the top of your favourite hilltop or trekking up a mountain top launch and then gliding gently into the unknown skies….
Paragliding is probably one of the most affordable forms of flight. It is perfect for those who are forever finding themselves looking toward the skies. If you are living in or visiting South Africa, you have more than one reason to do paragliding. Here are the Top Five Paragliding Cape Town Sites to pick from!
Paragliding Porterville
Porterville is located 140 kilometres away from Cape Town. It offers you thrilling views of vast dry fields browned by the heat of Cape Towns' summer temperatures. Porterville is a summer flying site and this means if you wish to paraglide in Porterville, you’ve got to take to the skies between October and April.
Paragliding Table Mountain
Table Mountain is at position number 2 on the list. However, only experienced paragliders should take to this treacherous cliff launch as it is one of the most complex paragliding launch sites. Needless to say, a top launch site of 1000m will surely make you break a sweat. Once airborne you will be rewarded with magnificent views of the Cape Peninsula. Great news though, we do have a training school, where we will get you from a beginner flyer to an expert in no time.
Paragliding Lions Head
Lions Head boasts its panoramic views of the white sandy beaches of Camps Bay and the Twelve Apostles mountain range. In soaring wind conditions Lions Head offers you a breathtaking and riveting flight with the landing field located next to the Bungalow, Clifton.
Paragliding Hermanus
Hermanus is at number four. It offers you calm and relaxed soaring conditions with views of the Olifantsberg. With an ideal wind speed of 15-20 kilometres, the spring season is the best time to do paragliding in Hermanus.
Paragliding Sir Lowrys Pass
With takeoff at 420 meters above sea level on the great Hottentots-Holland Mountain range, it has some serious potential for excellent XC and Soaring paragliding flight. Undeniably, this destination is best known for its magnificent views of the Overberg region.
Contact Fly Cape Town For A Life-Changing Paragliding Experience.
For more information about Fly Cape Town, Paragliding, the pilots, the routes or to schedule your next life-changing tandem paragliding experience. Please feel free to contact us at Fly Cape Town. and we will gladly assist you. Fly Cape Town also offers guided paragliding tours and gift vouchers.
Fly Cape Town are a group of highly experienced Tandem Paragliding Flight Instructors who can provide you with the best paragliding Cape Town has to offer.
Visit us on our contact page or head back to our home page to find out more on Fly Cape Town.
Dear visitors if you want to more information about Paragliding Cape Town and our all services please visit our website. We have a website. We welcome you. CLICK HERE
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The secret of the cross country flying
@Yassen Savov Paragliding
Because of all the new Coronavirus lockdown and the shitty weather after that, I managed to gather only about 20 hours flying until July, which is amazingly poor and low level, after all the magic flying last season. But traveling in 2020 is quite a challenge for everybody. So, after many plans going with the wind (only metaphorically speaking, unfortunately!) I decided to give it a go with an XC course/guided distance flying in Bulgaria, Sopot area.
Sopot is a small city on the southern part of the Balkans mountains, around 1h30 drive from Sofia, a 4h30 drive from Bucharest and a place where I’ve been a few times before. It is a cool place to fly and the weather here can be good for flying many days in a row especially in July and August, so I guess that makes it a reliable option close to Bucharest. It can be rough, it can be bumpy, but it can be flyable, so according to the experience of the pilot, it can be very rewarding or unsatisfying, even frustrating. In this magical place, where you can eat a great ice-cream right at the lift, good Bulgarian food at Rodeo, and talk to many nice and friendly pilots, I decided to learn to fly better.
One of the instructors is Niki Yotov from Skynomad, the one who told me about the course. He has been flying for over 20years and he knows very well the area, the particularities and the aerology of these mountains. He is a very good pilot and the one who managed the logistics for the course.
The other instructor is Yassen Savov, one of the best competition pilots World level, European champion and a crazy funny guy. I didn’t know Yassen before this, but I’m glad that I’ve met him now, he’s cool and I enjoyed very much flying with him. I hope that, at some point, my skills will be sharper so I can fly like him.
I figured that was a good combo for the guiding team, so I went along, it seemed the right thing to do. I also told Andrei Turnu, so that I can share the experiences with someone I knew. This is the link of the course, on Yassen’s site https://www.yassensavov.com/sopot-bulgaria-26-july-1-august/
The headquarters was at the nest www.nest.bg, Niki’s place, which I highly recommend because it really has good vibes, cool atmosphere flying-related and the place where we also had our theory sessions during the course, briefings and debriefings every day.
As the first day was forecasted with some overdeveloping of the clouds, we adapted somehow to the conditions. I know it is a small flight, but it was hard work there :)).
https://www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:raluca_dd/26.7.2020/11:14
The task was too optimistic for the day, but I had a really nice flight with Yassen and managed to turn back to the main landing place. I guess that we got the best what we could from that day as the plan changed accordingly. Honestly, if I were alone, I would go land much earlier, so the fact that we fly with the instructors is a good motivation for me. In bumpy air, I usually decide to land than to continue to struggle, but I guess that was just my lack of determination until now.
The course is held in this area, but actually not only in Sopot, as we ended in 2 hours drive take off from Sopot only on the second day. Some of the guys managed to fly very well and quite far by themselves or with the instructors, which is a very good thing. I managed to bomb-out twice, so not the best day for me. The conditions were not that bad actually, as it was proved by the others’ flights, but tricky for me, as it was a small hill near Plovdiv, with a quite strong wind at the take-off and some turbulent air, which I love by the way… So I took off, climbed in a thermal and then lost it on the way… It happens, I guess, but I decided I need some ballast in order to load my paraglider better and my wing to stay more stable.
The trouble is, as I guess most of the paragliding girls and light pilots, that I fly an S size glider and I don’t really load it maximum. XS size would be way too small, so a 65-85 is a good range, me having around 78kg with my equipment on.
The next day I took 4litres of water but there were no significant changes, with Yassen waiting for me on every jump and in every thermal… I felt a bit ashamed of that because I really tried and did my best..but my glide ratio nor my speed didn’t want to cooperate.
https://www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:raluca_dd/28.7.2020/09:48
We managed to get back near Sopot and land on a nice golden field. Yassen having his anti-G parachute thrown on every glide (although he flew with a Rush 4) just to wait up for me, priceless…
https://www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:raluca_dd/29.7.2020/08:38 – This one was my PR FAI triangle! Note to self: insist more where you consider it should work, don’t give up just before getting there!
But with an extra 5-6 liters of ballast, I felt like this is something I really had to do for a long time… My Rush 5 flies soooo much better and faster than I would have expected being overloaded, it seems. So with 9 liters of water ballast… It was just perfect! My every-day-collapses were a bit rarer, thou stronger, turbulence didn’t seem that annoying and the speed was amazing compared to the day before! I really felt I could travel by flying my paraglider, and not only feeling like moving around by bus! So days of the pure pleasure of flying with full speed at cloud base in the Sopot area… A dream coming true! Not the numbers are important, but the landscapes I got to see, the feelings I got to feel.. Just amazing!
https://www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:raluca_dd/30.7.2020/09:04
The preset task was 100km out and return to the west of Sopot. Although I bombed out on this flight, it was one of the best flights so far, I managed to stay at cloud base the whole flight over the mountains and then I had a low-save on a golden field, from 160m above the ground right to the cloud base, which allowed me to travel back for a few more km until the shadow came on the valley. The better option was to stay more on the right side when going back to the take-off, as the north wind entered stronger later in the day over the mountain.
@Svetli, at the Sopot take-off, Rush 4 and Rush 5
I don’t know how people get to learn how to do efficiently distance flying, but for me, it did not come naturally. It takes a lot of work, frustration, bomb outs and that uncomfortable feeling that I cannot do this. But actually, I can. I have learned a lot in the past year flying many hours in Colombia, India and around home, but I’ve learned even more in a few days on this course because the guys have worked hard on explaining how terrain should be approached, how the weather should be read, how the things should be working. And if you take it easy and shallow, it won’t work. You have to be committed to doing this. Every information should be processed and you should imagine very clearly the zoning in the air and the thermals and the clouds forming in order to get to fly far and fast. Of course, this course was held with people flying B wings and not competition level wings. It was a bit overkill, in my opinion, as Yassen and Niki fly way better than teaching us how to tighten the 360 in a thermal and when to push the speed bar. What I mean is that this course can be held for advanced pilots who want to fly fast in competitions or open distances.
I know how much I annoy Vladut with my slow flying that he only very rarely has the patience to wait for me (actually only twice that happened..). But I guess patience is something everyone has to deal with.
@ Svetli, at the Sopot take-off
We had on this course incredible good weather, kinda tricky, but if you fly with the right people nearby, it can be awesome! The 6th day of the course was really amazing, as I guess no-one expected to be epic weather for the day. The forecasted strong North wind was not really that strong and let us fly to the east and then southeast, with incredible cloud base 3200+. After beautiful site seeing over the Botev Peak, we flew out from the mountains and traveled at the cloud base over the flatlands to the southern part of Kazanlic and then south passing by Stara Zagora.
https://www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:raluca_dd/31.7.2020/09:06
The preset task was to Haskovo, but the wind was too westerly on that part so the new plan was Bulgaria-Greece-Turkey border. So after 7h flight and many thermals away, the goal was completed by all the three students flying that day in the course… What a day! 175 km, a personal best of distance flying and airtime. We had 2 different routes, Jack and I were with Yassen and Andrei was with Niki, but we managed to land in the same spot. At the landing, the bus was waiting for us, many thanks to Ivan for the retrieval. Actually every day was very well organized and the retrieval bus came very fast every time.
This is the team for this flight, Ivan was taking the photo.
Best guiding ever, I feel that I have made progress, I have learned a lot of things while flying but also in theory sessions. Amazing job, guys!
The 7th day of the course was also flyable though pretty strong NW wind at the Brestovitsa take off. I somehow managed to take off and then fly by myself for 45km with tricky strong wind and complete the small task. https://www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:raluca_dd/1.8.2020/11:08
Overall, it was a really great experience this XC course, with 2 of the best instructors I could have for teaching me stuff about cross country flying, having epic and amazing flights every day for a week… That is very consistent weather in the Sopot area, but actually, Bulgaria has very good weather most of the time… I would really like to fly again with the guys and maybe see some new places to fly in the next months if Corona will allow us.
Oh, I forget to tell you about the secret of cross country flying… I actually missed that because Andrei and I were late for the beginning of the course and the secret had already been told :)))
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Well i’m back from another epic week in #Wales! It was so much fun doing an XC competition, having my first sand dune flights, going on a guided XC with @alistair_andrews from @teamevolparagliding and #hikeandfly on the #Susi3 . So much achieved, so much learnt. 🙌 #fltmonkey #teamevolparagliding #airdesign #weloveparagliding #voolivre #livetofly #paraglideuk #parapente #insta360 #paragliding #advancegliders #gingliders #paraglidinglife #paraglidingforever #freefly #paraglider #360 #paragliding360 #borntofly #flywithme #thatview #paraglidingpilot #dune #groundhandling #loveparagliding #Gleitschirmfliegen #livewithoutlimits (at The Black Mountains, Wales) https://www.instagram.com/p/BzD1ZaGH4Pg/?igshid=j0ijmr6x3g5n
#wales#hikeandfly#susi3#fltmonkey#teamevolparagliding#airdesign#weloveparagliding#voolivre#livetofly#paraglideuk#parapente#insta360#paragliding#advancegliders#gingliders#paraglidinglife#paraglidingforever#freefly#paraglider#360#paragliding360#borntofly#flywithme#thatview#paraglidingpilot#dune#groundhandling#loveparagliding#gleitschirmfliegen#livewithoutlimits
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Fly Cape Town Paragliding Offers Expert Guided Paragliding Tour Packages.
Our expert Guided Paragliding Tours vary from single day trips to one, two or three week tours.
Normally the best conditions for paragliding tours are from October to April. Our paragliding tours packages includes airport transfers, bed and breakfast accommodation, transport to and from take-off sites, weather forecast and expert site briefings. We do also offer SIV training and ground handling clinics as optional extras.
Guided Paragliding Tours packages are tailored to the specific needs and experience levels of all pilots or groups. Radio instruction (if required) is available from our expert Guides / Instructors. We plan the tour around the local weather patterns. Cape Town offers a mixture of coastal soaring to thermic cross country conditions. Cape Town is surrounded by the beautiful Winelands of Constantia and landmarks like Table Mountain and Cape Point. On non-flyable days we have the option to go wine tasting in the wine regions of Franschhoek and Stellenbosch or go for a scenic site seeing drive along the magnificent coastline to Cape Point and Hout Bay.
Our very reliable XC site is Porterville where we have hosted a Paragliding World Cup in February 2013. The site record is 170km and this is the Mecca of Cross Country paragliding in South Africa. Here the XC hungry pilots can clock up the kilometers or the lower experience level pilots can work on perfecting their thermalling skills and technique.
The Garden Route offers easy relaxed coastal soaring with some spectacular views of white sandy beaches and the warm Indian ocean. Come brush up your ground handling skills with our optional Expert Ground handling clinics or enjoy soaring the beautiful 12km stretch of beach at Paradise ridge. Sedgefield offers a combination of thermic soaring and short XC flights are possible as well as connecting them to coastal soaring sites like Gericke’s Point and the Beach Hotel.
On non-flyable days we have the option to visit Cape Addo Elephant park where you can witness the Big 5 in its splendor or visit the beautiful town Knysna.
Come and experience true South African hospitality coupled with the paragliding experience of your life!
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Paragliding Tours
Our expert Guided Paragliding Tours vary from single day trips to one, two or three week tours.
Normally the best conditions for paragliding tours are from October to April. Our paragliding tours packages includes airport transfers, bed and breakfast accommodation, transport to and from take-off sites, weather forecast and expert site briefings. We do also offer SIV training and ground handling clinics as optional extras.
Guided Paragliding Tours packages are tailored to the specific needs and experience levels of all pilots or groups. Radio instruction (if required) is available from our expert Guides / Instructors. We plan the tour around the local weather patterns. Cape Town offers a mixture of coastal soaring to thermic cross country conditions. Cape Town is surrounded by the beautiful Winelands of Constantia and landmarks like Table Mountain and Cape Point. On non-flyable days we have the option to go wine tasting in the wine regions of Franschhoek and Stellenbosch or go for a scenic site seeing drive along the magnificent coastline to Cape Point and Hout Bay.
Our very reliable XC site is Porterville where we have hosted a Paragliding World Cup in February 2013. The site record is 170km and this is the Mecca of Cross Country paragliding in South Africa. Here the XC hungry pilots can clock up the kilometers or the lower experience level pilots can work on perfecting their thermalling skills and technique.
The Garden Route offers easy relaxed coastal soaring with some spectacular views of white sandy beaches and the warm Indian ocean. Come brush up your ground handling skills with our optional Expert Ground handling clinics or enjoy soaring the beautiful 12km stretch of beach at Paradise ridge. Sedgefield offers a combination of thermic soaring and short XC flights are possible as well as connecting them to coastal soaring sites like Gericke’s Point and the Beach Hotel.
On non-flyable days we have the option to visit Cape Addo Elephant park where you can witness the Big 5 in its splendor or visit the beautiful town Knysna.
Come and experience true South African hospitality coupled with the paragliding experience of your life!
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The journal of the Bassano magic
I met Spike few years ago when we were in Colombia and Bir, saw him training for hike and fly competitions ( he won the 9th place in RedBull XAlps 2021) and also saw him coaching flying groups and last year I decided to try come to one of his flying seminars.
My flying friend Andrei Turnu and I decided few weeks ago that we should start flying in the Alps so the playground for this spring was Bassano.
The spring flying season started here in Bassano 2 months ago and March was totally awesome, from what I heard and from the flights I saw on xcontest.
The first week of April was forcasted with shitty weather, low cloudbase, fully coverage and rain in some days, exactly the week we had planned to come, of course. The conditions this week were far from being the best or even usual here in Bassano area, from what I ve heard.
But, guess what, the magic of Bassano allowed us 5 days of flying out of 7 in the seminar, some were better, some were less, but totally I managed to fly some spring hours and learnt a bunch of new stuff from Spike. So, thank you Spike for this experience, I am looking forward to a new one!
Sunday was our first day of the seminar but we started with 5 or 6 hours of rain in Bassano. We were kind of depressed, but some walking and hiking really helped achiving the goal steps for the day and the spirits up.
The place we had the headquarters was La casa di Spike, in Rivai village, Arsie area, on the back valley from Bassano- Monte Grappa ridge, 40 minutes drive from the landing areas in Bassano. It is a very beautiful area for staying and for flying, very close from Monte Avena flying zone.
The second day looked not so good for flying, the cloudbase was pretty low on the mountains and we decided to give it a try in Bassano, but the rain came on the ridge so we escaped on the flatlands for an 1h flight.
Then, Spike s girlfriend, Leo, told us that in Arsie area the sky looks much better so we went back for a 2h flight on Monte Avena, with some clouds but really good climbs and ridge soaring, having in the background the Dolomitis. This take off is from the mountain called Monte Celado.
We were a gang of 8 flying pilots, plus Spike, most of them Polish pilots, one Canadian and two Romanians. And we managed a very nice flight with landing 300m far away from home.
https://www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:raluca_dd/4.04.2022/13:31
It was so freezing in the air that I hardly could feel my hands, so this first photo is @courtesy of Wadim who took off his glove to take this shot.
Second day of flying was on Tuesday when we took off from Bassano, a good training in a very crowded place with lots of beginner pilots. The task was to fly around, get to know the area and try to stay more in the air.
This is a new flight in magic Bassano where we flew with a low cloudbase on the mountains and then pushing after Brenta Valley where the sun was shining over the hills. My flight had few low saves that I am quite proud, not that it is an efficient way of flying, but still my patience got to new limits, which I find a good skill in cross country flying.
https://www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:raluca_dd/5.04.2022/08:51
On Wednesday the weather got much worse, so Spike invited us for a hike&fly adventure at 7 a.m. to Monte Celado takeoff. Although the cloudbase was lower than the launching place, we managed to make a good few minutes warm-up flight after 1h30 hiking.
The peak of the day was visiting Monte Grappa over the clouds with the whole team while heading to Bassano.
@courtesy of Jacek
After that, a local 35min flight for me in Bassano.
The 4th day of flying was on Thursday when Spike showed us a new take off in Caltrano, 20 something km to the west from Bassano, where we took off from above the clouds, that is why on my tracklog you will find that I gained no altitude during this flight. But still, with my new developed skill of patience, I managed to scratch the hill, find thermals and continue to the east for 50km, passing by Bassano takeoff. This is my longest flight in this seminar, but not the most hard-worked one, as I would find out the next day.
https://www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:raluca_dd/7.04.2022/10:09
The last flying day in the seminar was on Friday, when the forecast was for shitty weather, with fully covered sky and low cloud base. But that s why I called this Bassano Magic, because even if there was no place to go flying when searching on the meteo maps, this place offered us a new flying day and improved spring conditions. Proper spring conditions, with turbulences and the whole package. But it was such a good training day. We all managed to stay in the air, escaping from all the beginners from near the takeoff area and making a nice flight. Hard worked for me, but very satisfying.
The landing places in Bassano area are many and generous, so I guess that is one of the reasons for coming here so many beginner pilots and schools of paragliding from abroad.
https://www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:raluca_dd/8.04.2022/09:56
So even the canceled day on Saturday because of the feohn coming was flyable in the morning in Bassano. At the edge of CBs, but still flyable.
So this is my flying trip in Bassano, a guided seminar with Michal Gierlach and lots of new stuff learnt. So thanks again, Spike for awsome first adventure in the [lower] Alps.
#bassano flying#paragliding#italy paragliding#spring#bassano#xc guiding paragliding#xc seminar#cross country
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How to choose [wisely] your paragliding SIV course
I have been flying paragliders since 2008, when I decided to attend to a beginner’s course for 2 weeks in Parâng area, Romania. I didn't know much about paragliding back then so I went on a recommendation of a colleague at that time. That was not a good choice and if I have had some real reviews back then, I would have analysed it more carefully. Being an experienced pilot with good results or nice flights does not make you a good teacher. The pedagogical module helps a bit, but the skill..you should have it if you want to be an instructor.
Since then, I have been attended to some paragliding courses and participated in a few seminars on different subjects in the paragliding field: SIVs, XC guided courses or seminars. Some of them were really good and some..well.. not so much. Since 2015 for 5 consecutive years, I have participated in SIV courses in North Macedonia, over Ohrid Lake with a Bulgarian team, which in my opinion was a good choice with very good results. This year I decided to make a change and see other point of view of another instructor in Oludeniz, Turkey. I really think that some courses deserve more real reviews so that you can choose wiser.
I would say there are a few very important aspects to take in consideration when choosing a course, especially a SIV course, as it is your own life in stake.
- And as a planning-wise fact, the course with one instructor should have maximum 6 to 8 pilots, so that the pilots shouldn't wait for many hours at the take off in the sun for the other colleagues to be over the water and to have the instructor's attention. Also, the number of the participants in a course affects the time of individual briefing/debriefing sessions or simulator time every day.
- SIV or Acro. Well, it can be both in the same course but there will be time not well spent for some. Acro [wannabe] pilots already know the theory of basic manoeuvres, so SIV basics are too entry level for them. Also, pilots who only want SIV course will be over their head with too much information about way too complicated manoeuvres for their skill level.
- Every SIV course should start with introduction of the pilots, to understand their experience level and their aims for the course. The plan for the course should be individually adjusted as every pilot is different, even if the overall plan is somehow the same and in every SIV there are same manoeuvres taught. Comparison between pilots is stupid way of showing the progress of the pilots, as I mentioned before every individual is different, with different background and experience.
- Next step in a course should be the theory session, generalities about aerodynamics, weather, local particularities and then the very important part about manoeuvres, procedures and incidents. I find it necessary the theory session to be more condensate in just few hours sessions as it is common knowledge that after 2-3 hours, people tend to not paying that much attention. So, I guess the important stuff has to be taught when pilots are not tired, hungry or distracted.
- Also, in SIV courses, it is very important to simulate all the manoeuvres in the simulator with your harness, before every flying day so that when you get over the water, you can execute them even if, in case of emergency, you do not hear the instructor's vocal commands in the radio. Some instructors explain very well the manoeuvres and the procedures that when you are over the water, they just guide you in case of emergency, otherwise you are welcome to do them all by yourself.
- As for the commands of the instructor, well, they have to be clearly explained beforehand, so that when you are in the air executing a manoeuvre, to be able to understand what to do. Commands, like 'control it', have no sense and mean nothing if you do not understand what you have to do [ pull or release?! left or right or both?! Well, that depends on the manoeuvre you have to control ]
- Every flying day should have its own briefing and debriefing sessions, sensible organized in a day so that pilots can also have time to eat and rest, which I think it is normal every flying day.
- It is also important to have professional video recorder with zoom on the ground so that you can analyse the flight in the debriefing and see what you’ve done in the flights and what you should have done better.
- Another important fact is the compatibility with the instructor, as everyone has his own approach when teaching and also the attitude towards the students. Some students might adapt easier than others on instructor's style. [Personal feedback: This can go very wrong when you meet a textbook misogynist and frustrated instructor. Of course, this fact you will not know until you deal with it. Or you can ask for feedback from others.]
- The aim of this course should be to gain more confidence in your own strengths, to repeat manoeuvres, get them right and to learn new stuff as every pilot wants to develop his/her skills so that the pilot can fly better and safer. If after the course that did not happen, well... I guess it was not the right choice for you. That does not mean that you shouldn't try somewhere else. SIVs are a very important part of every pilot training.
- And finally, but also important, is what can be included in the course's price: a boat in the water which can come to you as quickly as you land in the water and save you, life vest for each pilot, radio station with ear set, rescue packing if you land in the water and usually a van to the take off. Some places, like Oludeniz, have cable car to the take off.
I hope that this article here will help you choose wisely your SIV course, the right instructor and the right place so that you can enhance your skills in paragliding. But you should also ask for personal reviews from people who already completed the course [ or at least tried to complete it].
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From India, with love
repost from 21st November 2019 on gotravel2fly
Bir Billing take-off site
Going to India for 3 weeks this year was a rushed decision and everything had to be planned in only one month. We wanted to catch the best possible time for flying in Bir, so we decided that mid-October - mid-November is the best time for traveling and for flying there.The result was amazing, we had the best adventure ever in discovering this country, the people and their culture. Of course, just a tiny little part of India, but it is a start. We've met a few people we already knew from Colombia and lots of other people from all over the world.Places like Bir in India or Roldanillo in Colombia are spots for paraglider pilots eager to fly many hours per day, many days in a row, but suitable from beginner to very experienced level. Bir offers a large range of types of flying: for beginner level there can be local flying and small xc flights, for intermediate level there can be XC flying on the front ridges and for experienced level there can be flying in the back, on higher peaks and can be transformed in vol-biv very easily so this type of flying needs to be very well planned in advance, with full equipment on.
Getting to Bir, Himachal Pradesh region, is an adventure itself, because the place is quite remote. We got our cheapest plane tickets with a 9h stopover in Istanbul, so we had a very short flight from Bucharest and almost a full day of maybe visiting Istanbul. So we found out that Turkish Airlines has some city tours for people who have big stopovers and we made it in the last minute to a 6h guided tour, with lunch included in the old city center and visits the Blue Mosque and Aya Sophia. It worth every minute of it and we really enjoyed this tour.Unfortunately getting back at the airport we found out that our flight to New Delhi was delayed with 2h40min so we missed our connection bus to Dharamshala.We bought our sim cards for getting an Indian telephone number and Internet but the guy said that it wouldn't work in the next 12h..so I couldn't reach my friend in New Delhi who would have helped me get another good option for arriving in Bir.So our spontaneous plan B was negotiating for 2h30 for a cab in the airport to get us directly to Bir on the same day.Our first stop by cab was in a vegetarian restaurant Shiva, where all the food was very spicy, even the bread. I think the food would be tastier without all the spices, but that s just me.After 12h of waiting for the sim cards to activate, we discovered that the guy only gave us the physical sim cards but not registered them with the extra option we paid for... So we had to pay again in some shop on our way to Bir.We had a few stops because it was a long journey, even there was only about 500 km. It took us 14h to get to Bir and I start to think that the roads in Romania are not that bad after all. Here in India our taxi driver was a very good one but the roads are impossible to drive faster than he did. Near some cities, there was so much chaos that I 've never seen before and I honestly don't know anyone to manage to drive better than this guy. But the last 100 km was so long.. They wouldn't finish. We managed to get to Bir at 1.30 am, after almost 40hours of traveling and not sleeping. I was so tired that even after 7h sleep in the bed, I didn't want to go flying. But I did and it was great.The place here in Bir is great, amazing views, friendly people (friendlier than in Delhi I might add) but being tired I didn't want to deal with potential dubious retrieval so I flew in the area for 2h in my first day.Funny fact is that obviously with huge luggage I did not bring my hairdryer. The local solution was to go to the hairdresser, pay him 20 rupees and dry my hair with his hairdryer.
Bir bus station area
The habit here in Bir is to wake up very early if you want to fly far. Sure, that was not the case for me ( because in the first few days I had to get used to the new area of flying, have the mindset that I can do longer flights, you know, confidence troubles) but the others were kind of desperate to fly more and more and so at 8.30 we were already in the cab on our way up. The trip from Bir to the take-off takes about 45 minutes by taxi and it costs 600 rupees. The whole time we had a personal taxi driver, a guy who waited for us every morning at 8.30 to drive us up.The take-off is always crowded even at 9 a.m., with people launching even if there is no thermal, just enjoying the views. In the first days we showed up the inversion didn't let me go too high, but I had nice flights trying to be patient in the air ( the only thing I could think of was Ivo telling Andrei Turnu at the SIV course: be patient, you have to have patience )
Bir -landing area
The food in Bir is mixed: you can have Indian dishes, Tibetan dishes or international cuisine (pizza, pasta, falafel, etc). I have tried many of the restaurants there and everywhere the food was good and did not have any problem ( as I thought I would have).The weather here in Bir is usually OK for flying after the monsoon period, so the start of October - mid-November and also in the springtime April-May. But this year it seems that the monsoon had extended and the weather was still very humid the first 2 weeks of October. Problem is that after monsoon come stable days... There was an inversion layer around 2300m and it is mostly ok if you fly on the higher mountains in the back, but from the take-off, you have to reach out to the inversion and fly only above it. If you fall under it, you struggle a lot. So all these being said, my 3rd day of flying in Bir was a complete frustration because I could not get above the inversion for 1h45min. I started to think that I'm a mess and I don't have any idea how to fly. So I landed, pack my glider, return to the homestay and enjoy a nice afternoon visiting the village and one of the Buddhist monasteries in Bir.
Photos from various Buddhist temples in Bir
the best Masala tea@ Garden Cafe in Bir
After a memorable day of flying, Vlăduț decided that he can sacrifice one day for flying with me, just to give me confidence in flying some distance. Although the day seemed to be the same as the day before, it actually was better as most of the people who took off in the morning managed to climb above the inversion. So did I and first personal record I broke today was the altitude one, I reached 3300m, the highest I've ever flown before with a paraglider. We decided to go to Dharamshala and back and Vladut flew with me all the time, practicing his patience and waiting for me to climb and then waiting for me to glide and so on. The view was just amazing, it's absolutely breathtaking flying near so high mountains. And we flew only in the front, not going on the main ridge actually. On our way back from Dharamshala, on a green terrace where I was trying to get a climb, I saw some animals moving around. They were probably impressed with our colorful wings so they gathered from the bushes and trees. As I could not climb very well there, so losing some hight over the terrace, I was wondering what animals were they so I looked more carefully and I realized they were grey monkeys, like the ones from the Jungle Book. I was so amazed that I circled again around the terrace and I managed to scare some of them away, still, I saw some small baby monkeys.The flight was the longest I 've ever had, duration and distance, flying 6h4min and 85km flat triangle. So 3 personal records in one day. Plus I managed to sum up over 100 flying hours this year, till now. Yep, pretty cool feeling!
https://www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:raluca_dd/23.10.2019/04:46
The strange feeling here is that every day is different and you can not tell until you fly. You cannot say in the morning if there is a good day or not, the weather can change very quickly and you just have to adapt.When there is overdevelopment or raining or strong wind, you can go visiting some more Buddhist temples.One good thing about the food here is that they have a lot of vegetarian dishes, so I actually haven't eaten any meat in India. I think that this is a good thing for me and I will try to keep this habit longer.The drinking water here is not a problem as I heard about the rest of India. They have here some fountains and everyone drinks from there. I tried not to use so much plastic, so I brought my own metallic recipient for filling it with drinking water.The problem here is the trash. I did not figure out how they collect the trash but most of it gets in the rivers, so the water from the river is only clean on the mountain where are no people. Otherwise everywhere here people throw the trash in the water or they burn it.Another thing you can do when not flying in Bir is renting a bike and visit the Buddhist monastery called Palpung Sherabling, 40 minutes ride from Bir, Dharamshala direction, but on a secondary road(I cannot explain the chaos is here on the roads even when it is not a big city). The whole visit worth it, not only because we saw a big group of monkeys at the monastery, but because I had the best ginger-lemon-honey tea ever and we were also witnesses at the monks' prayers during their ritual. That was an intense and very rhythmic experience in the temple where children and adults monks were singing and reading their mantras and playing on two big drums and horns. I don't know much about the Buddhist religion but the atmosphere was impressive and somehow not that different from our Orthodox church inside monasteries.After many local or very short xc flights, I manage to focus and stay in the air longer time so I get to fly more distance. The classic route is to take off in the morning, go west to Dharamshala, come back and go east to Camp 360.
Baijnath bazaar
The few first days in November weren't that great, it was very unstable weather and it rained for one night that I thought it wouldn't be flyable the next day, but it was. The weather is not very predictable, but it is flyable almost every day.One day we decided that it is no worth going up to the take-off because it was cloudy so we went to a small hike in the wilder parts of the village to see a small Hindu temple. Then we decided to visit a village near Bir, Bashnat, a few km away. So we took the bus because now we were 5 so we don't fit in one taxi. The ride by bus was very cheap and we really enjoyed it. In Bashnat we visited a 1000 years old Hindu temple, just amazing. All sculpted in stone with a lot of decoration.If you like Indian clothes, you will find tons of them in bazaars, all kinds and colors. The trouble is that especially in the countryside there are not ready-made, so you can buy a kit containing one scarf and two textile materials fo trousers -salvar and for the dress named kurta. After that, you have to go to a tailor to sew your new clothes to fit you. It is quite cheap to do that, so I managed to buy a full kit with 750 rupees and paid the tailor 300 rupees. The tailor was very professional and the kurti was amazingly beautiful. We were out dressed in them, celebrating my new distance record 122 km flat triangle, Vlăduț's 150 km fai triangle and the last night in Bir of Kevin and Lisa, our new friends from Australia.
https://www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:raluca_dd/5.11.2019/04:41
For the last week, we have visited some other places, Palampur and the tea plantations and Dharamshala with Dalai Lama's temple. The bazaars are full of stuff to buy as souvenirs. Himachal Pradesh is an amazing area. All the people we've met were friendly and kind and we decided to come back again next year.Delhi is one of the most polluted cities in the world. We had to wear masks to be able to breathe filtered air, especially because in this period, many people use to burn down their fields and also there is a holiday called Diwali when everybody burns firecrackers all over the place for 3 to 5 days. So the quality of the air is very much reduced because of this. The initial plan was to stay for 2 nights in Delhi and one day to visit Agra and the Taj Mahal. We abandoned this plan when we found out that the quality of the air was very poor with a hazardous risk. So only one day in the big city was more than enough to understand why people in India we talked with prefer to stay on the mountainside, away from the big crowded 28-million-people capital.We enjoyed taking photos with lots of people in Delhi, where we happened to get to a Sanskrit Meeting in an exhibition complex.
1000 years old Hindu Temple in Baijnath
Tea plantation @ Palampur
in Delhi with Alexandra and some nice dressed girls
India, we will come back for sure!
the chaos in Delhi
the veggie momos
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