Salvador Dallying

And so it seems I am fated to repeat history even as others are busy making it. This time last year I was stranded in Thailand by a volcano; this time this year I am stranded in Brazil by rain and ineptitude. Not, I grant you, an entirely disastrous turn of events - no doubt worse things happen at sea everyday - but annoying nonetheless, given that I missed out on a bonus, one-off, never to be repeated bank holiday. I mean obviously I wouldn't have been able to take full advantage of that anyway, being still bereft of a job to have a day off from, but still it would have been fun to share in everyone else's mirth at being released from servitude for a day.

My invite somehow having got mixed up with the B's and lost along with those of Blair and Brown I wouldn't have made it to the Abbey anyway but I might at least have enjoyed better quality coverage. Dimbleby was much missed as I caught the nuptials live on CNN with Piers Morgan floundering his way through the intricacies of the ceremony adding little except to say that he liked the dress.

Tearing myself away from such searing insight I did finally manage to leave Vitoria and arrive back in Salvador where it all started two months ago. And what a difference 8 weeks makes. Gone were the stench of piss, the relentless pick pockets, the line of tramps sleeping on our doorstep and the teams of bat wielding police. But it wasn't all good news, gone too were the 2 million revellers, the 24 hour party atmosphere and even (and I'm still a bit confused by this) a large building where we spent a whole night of Carnageville drinking all we could. And in their place? Worse weather, less to do and four days to kill before our flight home.

Ironic that after two months of great flights with us at the controls we should be scuppered as soon as we entrusted them to a professional. I could spend hours extolling the virtues of Brazil as a place to fly, but general interest in paragliding being what it is there's probably no need to relate how we thermalled to great heights, flew for hours across rolling countryside, soared over landscapes reminiscent of Jurassic Park, or landed in a ramshackle football stadium reminiscent of Goodison Park.

Fear not, however, for we were not so focussed on these worthy pursuits as to forget the usual spreading of love and imparting of wisdom that so characterises our trips abroad. A prominent example of the latter came when we offered backgammon lessons to the local club in Morro de Sao Paulo. Admittedly our tuition was not entirely free, but I felt it was good enough value that they could have expressed their gratitude in slightly more friendly terms.

As to the former goal, no circular stone was left unturned or principle intact by one of our party and there would be much to report had not the scourge of the super injunction reached even to the shores of Brazil and prevented me from even mentioning his or her name. Currently my hands are tied, though my lips may be loosened by the privileges of the (public) house on my return.

Hopefully there will be no further cock ups and that return will be tomorrow as I grow tired of Salvador and have no wish to extend a slightly limp end to what's been an amazing trip. And thinking of limp ends I've got someone asking me to play backgammon now, must dash.

Diary of a VAV

It had all been going so well. I'd even managed to stretch an extra four months out of an already lengthy decade by returning to Thailand ten years on just in time for New Year. They call it Song Kran out here and make sure celebrations go with a splash by having the biggest waterfight I've ever been involved in. What turned out to be an epic day started with DIY sunlounger waterslides on the beach, progressed to the town-wide delugingม then drunken beach volleyball before being rounded off by another night on the buckets.


Prior to that we'd snuck a in few days on Koh Tao where the highlights included Pitcairn screaming like an excitable teenage girl when a Trigger fish looked in his general direction and JT having a, sadly unwitnessed, comedy fall to cap off a lamentable kayaking performance. There was a very short game of killer pool on a snooker table, a very long night drinking buckets of Sang Song and much fun had by all.

But the main event and raison d'etre for the trip was the day before Song Kran: the nuptials of Claire and Dave, back to exchange rings on the island where they first met in a ring, at a Muay Thai training camp. Both were taking the occasion seriously and were well prepared having spent the last three months working on their tans. They were beautiful, the setting was beautiful and as the sun set on their engagement and a honeyed moon rose on their married life a strange mood fell upon the gathering. Maybe it was the romance in the air, probably it was the alcohol in the system, but by the end of the night most of the guests had given themselves up to naked revelry in the sea. There were some who thought this a good photo opportunity, should any of them be unwise enough to distribute the resulting images I ask only that you bear in mind that the sea out here is much colder than you'd imagine.

The fun continued into Song Kran the next day, a night at the boxing the day after and then it was time for the party to start breaking up. Premature as ever, Ned was the first to leave, like a thief, in the dead of night. Well actually, bucketed-up after a night out, in the dead of night. And then, amid fond farewells from friends old and new, I took my leave of the group and headed for home.

Two days later I was meeting Pitcairn and the Physio Crew at Bangkok airport and heading into town to meet up with the wedding refugees spread across Bangkok. We joined other Volcanic Ash Victims in a hotel near the Koh San Road, huddled together round the rooftop pool exchanging information and rumour. In keeping with our stranded predicament there was a considerable Dunkirk spirit, everyone with reasons to be home, but determined to make the best of things while we waited not for the small boats, but the big planes to come to our rescue.

This unexpected reunion prompted an impromptu night out with about ten fellow wedding guests before it was time for the fellowship to break up again. Some waited in Bangkok for updates, the PPC flew off to Malaysia to do their waiting there and I made a speculative phonecall to a longlost cousin.

Joel and I seem to meet up about once every fifteen years, the last time being the day Gazza score that goal against Scotland in Euro '96, but he didn't let that get in the way of his hospitality and I spent a very pleasant couple of days chez Harding recuperating, monitoring the situation and taking advantage of his expert local knowledge. A visit to the airline office on the second of those days revealed that I was unlikely to be going anywhere for a week so, ever the pragmatist, I resigned myself to a few days on the beach and headed for Koh Samet.

Proving either that great minds think alike or that fools seldom differ, I was greeted on arrival by Jo and John who had grown tired of waiting in Bangkok and had the same idea. They were lured back to the city by the (sadly incorrect) possibility of a flight yesterday and so I now keep a lone vigil in my room overlooking the sea, watching the boats come and go, wondering when my ship will come in.

Hasta… no se quando

Don Simon.

Photos as usual at: www.don-simon.smugmug.com

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

The Life of a Migratory Bird

Following the success of my previous mission to bring joy to the peoples of the world by travelling amongst them and imparting wisdom, I am now embarked on a new quest: to emulate as closely as possible the life of a migratory bird. To that end I spent a few months summering in England at sites familiar to me from my fledgling days and then, with the onset of autumn, I took flight once more, bound for warmer climes.

On such a long journey migratory birds may break the journey at familiar sites along the route. This seemed a sensible policy to me also, so the first leg of my journey was England to Boston. There I was made very welcome by my cousin, family and friends and passed a very pleasant week enjoying New England in the fall.

And thankful I was for some succour along the way as, in common with so many species in these changing times, the way of life of the migratory bird is threatened by changes to habitat and climate. I mean fifty dollars to check two bags? Five dollars for an in-flight beer? Compared to that the problems facing the white rhino or the giant panda are a walk in the safari park. I managed to blag my way out of the former levy, but the latter I just had to swallow, repeatedly.

But it would be a short-sighted bird indeed that escaped the English winter only to replace it with the even harsher conditions of the Northern US so, after my rest stop, I took flight once more and headed for my winter flying ground in Eastern Colombia. And here I am still, enjoying the payback of the stressful migration in the form of warm weather, nice flying conditions and friendly locals.

My main problem, apart from the fact that a power cut killed the stereo, is that I have arrived here a monoglot in a polyglot environment. I am in the process of changing this and have made some progress to the extent that I managed to crack a joke in Spanish the other day, sadly I can't help but feel that I've also been the butt of far more than I realise. So, with that in mind and as it's a cloudy morning, I'm off to conjugate some verbs.

Chao

Don Simon.

P.E. Como siempre, fotos en www.don-simon.smugmug.com

Once More Unto the Beach

'El unico riesgo es que te quieras quedar', that's what the Colombian tourism posters tell you, 'The only risk is that you'll want to stay.' It's a bit of an over simplification, probably for marketing purposes, but it also has an element of truth. Colombia is very far removed from the popular perception of it back home, I remember catching myself a few times wondering whether I could be arsed to lock my door, often I couldn't. Wanting to stay, however, is a very real risk.

Following our graduation as pilots we headed for Bogota which is, for me surprisingly, quite beautiful and made up of lots of interesting bits, some of which we explored when another birthday somehow crept up on me and then slipped away leaving me a year older but none the wiser. The climate didn't really suit me though and as soon as I found myself considering buying a coat I decided it was time to leave. So back I went to the Caribbean and the charming fishing village of Taganga.

There are essentially three things to do in Taganga: dive, fish and chill. We did a fair bit of all three in the end with varying degrees of success, including an Advanced Diving course which was to test some of our party to the limit and beyond. It was the deep dive that really sorted the wheat from the chaff.

The dive involved performing a series of simple tasks, first in the classroom and then at 30m below the surface. The aim being to see how well you cope with Nitrogen build up or something similar. Ricky and I were joined by a delightful young lady for the course and all three of us breezed through the basic maths and the child's shape association toy sections. Then came the tiebreaker. In keeping with two of the contestants, the format was fairly simple – we were all shown a common fruit or vegetable and asked to identify it. I said tomato, they said potato and we very nearly had to call the whole thing off. It turned out I was right and they were a pair of vegetable impaired idiots. Amazingly, this basic error did not prevent them from passing the course and, following successful completion of the night dive, we all graduated as advanced divers. Equally amazingly, for Ricky the moment of maximum embarrassment was yet to come.

Maybe it was too much sun, maybe too much beer, maybe it was the water. But for whatever reason Ricky shat his hostel bed not once, but twice. Obviously I was devastated for the poor lad and found it terribly cruel the way in which he somehow acquired the sobriquet “Shitter Guy”, becoming in the process something of a celebrity around the place and precipitating giggles from the very girl who had to clean his poo-soiled sheets every time she saw him.

Partly to give him a break from all the pointing and laughing, we went for a while to the more rustic surroundings of Parque Tayrona which, in the unlikely event I ever get round to making it, is likely to feature on the list of most picturesque beaches I've ever seen. Perhaps the most singular feature is the rocks which are granite and huge, but it also has plenty of coconut trees fringing the sunkissed beach. Altogether a very inspiring place.

We tried going back to Taganga after that, but people were still laughing at Ricky for having shat his bed, twice. So we took another trip, this time to Cabo de la Vela. Getting there was a mission. A taxi, a 4 hour bus, another taxi and finally a 4wd truck driven by a maniac who, despite there not being another car within sight (and you could see for miles in all directions), seemed to think it was some sort of race. Quite possibly the Indy 500mg to judge by the quantity of cerveza he was getting through before and during the journey. Largely because it's very flat and empty and he couldn't find anything to crash into, we did eventually arrive and found not so much a beach as a desert next the sea which had a haunting beauty all its own.

From there we returned for a third time to Taganga and the “Shitter Guy” taunts which Ricky got for having shat his bed, twice. And it was there that our triumvirate finally broke up. I'm not a big fan of goodbyes and it was hard to face the prospect of saying farewell in a single day to both Ricky and the cooler, the pair of whom had been staunch drinking companions throughout Venezuela and Colombia. The cooler, it seems, could sense this and the night before we were to part company it did a Captain Oates and slipped quietly away into the night. Cooler, if you're reading this, hope the travels are going well and thanks for everything.

I trod then a lone path to Medellin where, rolling back the years, the shoulder was well and truly dropped in an aircraft hanger rave. Following that a weird and amazing thing happened. Everywhere we looked, be it waiting for taxis or queueing for the after party, fit girls appeared as if from nowhere. Honestly, it was like something out of dawn of the dead only with hot chicks instead of zombies. In the end we couldn't cope any more and had to go home to ponder things in depth.

By which time my shiny new paraglider had arrived in Bucaramanga so I hot footed it back there and spent the remainder of my time flying it. Alas, I fear this blog entry is already a touch long without me boring you with the details of what that was like. It may one day be the subject of a separate blog, but for now suffice it to say that it was truly amazing and more fun the better I got at it. The only question was how to follow an amazing two weeks of flying there and the only answer was another trip to the Chicamocha canyon which turned out to be even better second time around and a perfect way to round off my time in Colombia.

The flying was not over, though, as I spent the next day on a succession of planes and had the dubious and no doubt costly experience of withdrawing money in four different currencies in the same day before finally reaching Barbados where I had time to pay a single visit to the beach and reflect on a very full five months of experiences. I had hoped to take some more money off the taxi drivers at backgammon, but someone must have tipped them off as they'd taken their game elsewhere for the day and all I found was a game of dominoes. I don't bet on dominoes.

And now? Now I'm back in Blighty wondering what I can possibly do to follow that and, once again, there is only one answer: Glastonbury beckons. If anyone fancies a pint give me a shout. Until then, chao.

Don Simon.

Photos as ever at www.don-simon.smugmug.com

Learning to Fly

They say you never forget your first time and I can't disagree; It lasted about five minutes, saw me lying facedown next to a pile of shit and ended in high fives all round. It's also true, as most people say, that it gets better with practice and as my technique improved I grew less nervous and more concerned with hitting the spot as I went down. Not that it was an incident free progression, there were some worrying encounters with large bushes and I failed to get it up occasionally, but on the plus side I was managing to make it last longer - on the 6th time (I keep a careful log of these things) I managed to keep it up for 18 minutes.

To start with there as many downs are there are ups, but with practice it is possible to complete the process without having to go down. Indeed it becomes a point of pride not to go down and a seminal moment in any man's life when he can get the job done without recourse to the bottom. I'm trying to think of a suitable analogy but my imagination fails me, I guess learning to paraglide is an experience all on its own. And every flight offers something different. The main highlight of the first solo flight, for example, was being unijured at the end of it. Later on I was pleased to discover that putting your wing into a tree doesn't necessarily damage it (though it can, as Ricky later found out). Then came the satisfaction of my first landing exactly on the designated spot and finally top landings back at the launch site on the hill rather than the LZ in the valley thus enabling more flights in a short space of time and showing off in the front of the assembled crowd.

For real showing off though, there was only one man in town, Edinson Alvarez, who took time out from being Colombian champion and all round legend to teach us to fly and also took us up on some bonus tandem flights where he demonstrated the Death Spiral along with diverse other impressive flying tricks (photos, and possibly a video if I work out how to do it, at the usual place). Strangely, doing the Death Spiral with Edu at the controls was a lot less scary than trusting Zorba, who flew like a bird throughout, to obey the rules on not cutting people up when they're over the ridge. In the end my landing that day was as expertly controlled as it was hasty, but for a moment the cafeteria roof was looking like my best option.

Also a bit too exciting at times was our graduation flight at the Chicamocha Canyon where the thermals were somewhat stronger than we were used to. The views were stunning though and, most importantly, at the end of it we were P2 qualified and allowed to do it on our own.

Absolutely amazing.

Photos at: www.don-simon.smugmug.com

Vote Si: A Nation Speaks

Looking back our first attempt at Anaconda hunting was somewhat inexpert, though what we lacked in experience we made up for in ignorant exuberance. Our guide was first into the swamp feeling his way with a large pointy stick, Zorba nabbed the one remaining stick and followed him leaving Ricky and myself to proceed stickless. Not a problem, we thought, no doubt we can feel any snakes with our bare feet. Our guide picked an interesting moment to tell us this might be a bit risky. He waited until Zorba had prodded a small cayman with his stick, jumped in the air, soiled himself and shouted for help before pointing out, somewhat redundantly, that we really ought to have sticks for this kind of caper. Sound advice no doubt, but hard to act on when you're in the middle of a swamp some distance from dry land and the nearest stick.

Fortunately there were no more close encounters of the reptilian kind that day and eventually Zorba stopped shaking. I fear, though, that his memory has been irreparably damaged by the shock as every time he recalls the incident the creature involved gets bigger. By tea time the guide's estimate of 1 metre had been doubled, the next day it was 2.5m and by the time he got access to facebook it was not even a cayman any more but a 3m crocodile. I haven't asked recently but I expect by now it's probably at least the size of a t-rex.

Other than that we were uninjured by our experience and the next day, having procured some large sticks, we set out once more on the hunt. This time we had more more luck and bagged ourselves a 5m specimen with minimal fuss and no intervening caymans (caymen?).

It was also in Los Llanos that the much vaunted Venezuelan birds started to live up to expectations having been distinctly disappointing so far. Amongst my favourites were the Scarlet Ibis and the White Egret, though, if only for its fishing abilities, the Black-collared hawk was hard to beat. Not that 'crocs', snakes and birds were the only things to see, the whole place just teems with wildlife and we were lucky enough to see capybara, piranhas and even the inappropriately named giant anteater, which in fact spends a lot of its time eating normal ants.

Next up was a trip to Lago Maracaibo to see the world's most consistent electrical storm and source of much of the planet's ozone: the Catatumbo Lights. It was indeed consistent, in fact it went on most of the night, but, perhaps due to the full moon, it was not as spectacular as I'd hoped. What was interesting was the village of Congo Mirador two hours out into the lake where people live on stilted houses in a manner the Spanish found similar to Venice, hence the name Venezuela.

Meanwhile, my inadvertent election campaign was gathering pace, our week long sojourn in the country having apparently done nothing to arrest the groundswell of public opinion. 'Vota Si' notices were springing up across the nation covering everything from walls and roadsigns to boat engines and hillsides. Unless I've really got the wrong end of the stick, the people of Venezuela have decided that now is the time for a new Simon to finish the work that Bolivar started two centuries ago. My only opponent seems to be a shadowy, faceless individual known only by the initials NO. I'm not overly concerned, he seems to be running a very negative campaign whilst mine is an intrinsically positive message. Besides which there are so many posters in support of me that he's struggling to get his message across, it's as if Hugo Chavez himself has thrown his weight behind the Si campaign.

And with that comforting thought in mind I have decided to cease campaigning and continue my travels and thus am currently in Colombia preparing for government.

Hasta la revolucion

Don Simon.

Photos at: http://don-simon.smugmug.com/gallery/7817469_GNyAD


Special election album 'Isn't it Sironic?'

On Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=116656&id=613602316&ref=share

On Smugmug
http://don-simon.smugmug.com/gallery/7896225_pQGsh#512032980_RqH2Y