Ten Years None the Wiser

This blog was going to be about all the amazing flights I've had, but it's been suggested to me that paragliding stories are boring. So you won't be hearing about how I've thermaled to the height of the world's tallest buildings, flown into a football stadium or even how I managed to land on the back of a moving motorcycle. Instead, ever a slave to the whims of my public, I took a break from flying so I could report on goings-on outside of the paragliding world. It's been tough but here's the story so far.

Having left my hilltop home I headed once more for the eternal spring of Medellin and the eternal party of the Pit Stop hostel. There I met an interesting cast of characters who forced upon me a fortnight of indulgence. Crammed into an action packed, yet strangely languid, couple of weeks were two days flying, two football matches, a Tiesto set and, for once, some decent beer, courtesy of the local microbrewery.

After that too much beer had us drifting into the arena of the unwell and thus in need of harmony, fresh air, stuff like that. We decamped to Rafa's house and headed off for a delightful mid-week break in the country.

Rafa's house is in the beautiful mountains surrounding Medellin where each finca sits atop its own little hill and commands magical views. There I spent a lot of time sitting down and enjoying my holiday and the excellent food (mostly salchipapas) on offer. The serenity was interrupted only by the presence of a rottweiler called Wanda who had not a bad bone in her body, but did have a pathological addiction to chewing absolutely anything she could get her jowls on. The sunglasses we managed to save, the headlamp met with a slobbery end.

We didn't quite manage to go fishing whilst there, but we did go on a hugely interesting, if slightly unusual, nature ramble in the company of Hernan, a wise man native to those parts. His moated house was straight out of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, full of oddities and souvenirs of a long and interesting life and his knowledge of the flora and fauna thereabouts almost uncanny.

Refreshed and rejuvenated by our sojourn we all returned to the city and headed in our separate directions. For me this meant a few days of Colombian hospitality in Medellin and then a return to Las Aguilas for Christmas.

Following a festive period where the food fell well short of normal standards, but the paragliding was good, I was joined for two weeks by a weather refugee. Forced from his own country by biting cold and ungritted roads, Mizan quickly adapted to the pace of life at Las Aguilas and after some initial misgivings even took to the skies on a couple of occasions. The second occasion being a New Years Eve trip to the Chicamocha canyon. The scenery was as stunning as ever, the thermals were good enough and the post-flight beer in the glacier-fed swimming pool was as refreshing as it felt well-earned.

And so, farewell to the noughties. A decade whose beginning was heralded like no other, marked by domes and wheels, and whose end crept up almost unnoticed, marked only by lists of the best films and albums of the period. It's hard to believe ten years of the best and the worst of times have passed under the bridge since the world somehow survived the millenium bug, but the calendars are unequivocal on the subject and actually, when I come to think about it, for me it has been a very long decade; almost certainly longer than this one will be, even if the world doesn't end in 2012.

In 1999, by cunningly positioning myself in Thailand for the start of the decade I got a seven hour headstart on proceedings and by seeing out its end in Colombia I snuck an extra five hours in just before it finished. Thus giving myself an extra half-day as bookends for the noughties. And it was a half-day well spent.

The first part was spent on a beach in Ko Phangan, expanding my horizons in the company of friends old and new; the second on a hill overlooking Bucaramanga, expanding my horizons in the company of friends old and new. Same same, but different.

So what will the next decade hold? Well so far it’s just been same same, not different: ten days partying on the coast and now a paragliding competition. But it’s very early days and anything could happen. One thing we can be sure of though is that, however you pass those ten years, it always comes to nought in the end.

Don Simon.

Photos at www.don-simon.smugmug.com