Colombia Flying, Safari Style

Staff Writer > C.J. STURTEVANT

We Northwest pilots are fortunate to enjoy some of the finest summer flying conditions anywhere in the US, but by the time Halloween rolls around the good times are getting scarce. It’s time to get the heck out of here! A poll of our local pilots’ favorite “winter escape” destinations would yield few surprises. Mexico probably ranks #1; it’s our nearest neighbor to the south, it’s cheap, and there are lots of potential destinations and flying sites. But Colombia is a close second: It’s a ways farther than Mexico, but it’s equally inexpensive, and if you’re on the east side of the US, you don’t even change time zones! Most Colombia-bound pilots end up around Roldanillo, a delightful paragliding mecca in the wide Cauca valley, where XC options are plentiful, and LZs are conveniently sprinkled along the typical XC routes. George and I did a Roldanillo destination trip back in 2014, and while we make a point of not re-visiting our foreign flying destinations, we never quite got around to erasing Colombia from our “potential winter escapes” list. But then something happened that immediately bumped Colombia right up to the top of our list. Our newly discovered favorite tour guides, Mike and Toby from Passion Paragliding, were offering a “safari-style” trip in the Cauca valley, starting up near Medellin and, over the course of two weeks, working down the valley to near Cali, spending a couple or a few days in six lovely hotels/resorts and flying from eight different sites along the route. If you’re a pilot who appreciates the opportunity to really get to know a site and figure out how to max its potential, then this may not be the format for you, but if you enjoy the challenges of new sites and landing zones, and the fun of exploring new territory, then this “safari flying” may be your dream vacation.

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Who Goes on a Passion Paragliding Trip?

Mike and Toby are Brits, but they draw clients from around the world. On this adventure we had four pilots from the Pacific Northwest (Jan, Jim, George and me), Wilo and Wayne from Australia, and the rest were Brits (Rob, Charles, Garth, Frank, Dave, Bill, Graham, Steve and Simon, plus Simon’s wife, our wonderful non-flying photographer, Barbara). George and I have become accustomed to being the geezers of our flying tour groups, but really, we weren’t all that much older than many of the rest of the guys this time, with only a couple of actual youngsters in the mix. Aside from Barbara, I was the only woman on the tour.

Expectations, and some cool surprises:

A true “it’s a small world” moment happened right off at our first gathering: “For me,” says Graham, “the most memorable bit from this trip was the first morning, recognizing a face, realizing that it was Dave, my buddy from our forces days. After serving with him throughout the Falklands conflict in 1982 we lost touch when he left the Marine Air Squadron to continue his training. First time I had seen him since, didn’t even know he was a paraglider pilot. The rum flowed…” As for flying expectations, all of us knew we’d be logging a lot more airtime in our two-week safari than we’d get if we’d stayed home. But the “safari” concept was a new one for most of us, so it was with great anticipation that we gathered for our first group briefing. “Here’s the plan,” Toby began, while handing out the obligatory paperwork.

We were in Medellin, the northern end of our safari route, but, Toby explained, we’d drive a bit farther north on this first day for an attempt to fly back towards Medellin before loading the vans and heading south, toward Jerico, the following day. From Jerico, we’d fly toward (or, ideally, to) La Pintada, where we’d have several days in a luxurious resort (with a swimming pool!) from which we’d explore the area from a couple of sites, one a long drive WAY deep into the mountains with the goal back at La Pintada’s huge, flat LZ. Then on to La Union, our base for five days in the “usual” Colombia XC area, and ending with two days based in the little town of Santa Elena before busing to Cali for our flights home. So, that was the itinerary. Our group ranged in skill and interest level from gung-ho XC pilots, through limited-experience XC hopefuls to rusty-skilled pilots who, having not flown for months or even years, were looking to the Passion Paragliding guys to help them get tuned up for the upcoming season back home. Some of us had flown in Colombia (mainly in the Roldanillo area) previously, many had not. Toby and Mike, along with local guide Nico, made it work for all of us.

Safari flying

Bill from England (“not the UK, as everyone else in the world seems to think of us,” he pointed out) has been flying paragliders for a little over six years and has accumulated about 250 hours of flight time. He’s flown in Colombia a couple of times before and admits he’s “quite hooked on the place—it has so much potential for great flying and is such a friendly place that I think it will have a spot on my mustfly list every year for some time to come.” He found the safari format of this trip particularly appealing. Having the opportunity to fly at new-to-him sites “showed me that there is more to the Cauca valley than just a huge, wide valley with mountains either side—the landscape around Jerico and La Pintada is much more varied and, to me, much more beautiful.” He, like most of us, appreciated the mellow conditions: “It isn’t too lively a start after a bit of a break from paragliding over the winter.” Rob lives “on the edge of London, not an ideal location for much UK flying,” he laments, and learned to fly back in 2001; since then he’s clocked up about 750 hours of airtime, from coastal soaring to high-mountain XC. This was his first trip to Colombia, and to South America, which, he says, is “the fifth continent over which my paraglider has carried me.” It was mainly the safari-style format of this trip that drew him to this tour. “Clearly, staying in Roldanillo for a fortnight would mean a lot less travelling and potentially a fair bit more XC flying,” he points out, adding “I might take that option in the future.” But for a first visit, he felt, the safari format was perfect, “because it included both the popular flying areas in the south as well as a variety of lesser-known sites to the north. Plus,” he adds, “having been on many adventures with Passion Paragliding, I knew that Toby and Mike would deliver on the logistics as well as the fun factor.”

It’s a place that is hard not to fall in love with

Simon has been flying for 30 years, done a bit of competing, and has “been up through the wing grades and now back down to a Chili 4, as I only fly 50 hours a year or so” these days. He and Barbara especially enjoy exploring new territory, so the safari format appealed to them, and they tacked on a few extra tourist days at each end of the trip to check out Medellin and Cali. Jim has been flying paragliders for 20 years, with a couple thousand logged flights and 1800 hours; this was his third trip to Colombia. “It’s a place that is hard not to fall in love with,” he declares. “The sites are gorgeous and the thermals are friendly, resulting in so much potential for extended flights both in time and distance. Coupling that with affordable living and very friendly people makes this a trip that I think anyone would enjoy. And the safari style of tour means you’ll always be introduced to something new.” He lists as his most memorable “something new”—and probably a once-in-a-lifetime—experience: landing at an active gold mine. “The workers were very friendly,” he reports, “although not enough to provide us with any samples. They hiked out with us, gave us water at the end of our hike, and were good company as we waited for our retrieve bus to arrive.”

George and I chose this trip partly because we’d had a blast with Passion Paragliding on last summer’s vacation in Macedonia and Spain, and also because we were excited about getting to fly a bunch of new sites during our NW no-fly season. We were not disappointed! But it wasn’t all love from the get-go: After our orientation on that first day we drove a couple hours north to Sopetran, hoping to fly at least partway back to our base at Medellin. But conditions were not conducive to XC that day, and we ended up with a looong bus ride in heavy traffic back to our hotel. “It did shake the cobwebs out,” Simon admits, and to his mind the additional time we spent in the