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I'm on a long planned paragliding trip in Colombia, with inconsistent Internet access. It feels really strange to be out of the country right now when so much shit is going down.
Whenever I get back online, it's not doom scrolling so much as clown scrolling. "Red white and blue land"? Subpoenaing the (deceased) members of the Warren Commission? "Gulf of America"? It's all so fucking stupid.
But it's also obviously a convenient distraction so we don't notice little things like gutting the CFPB.
The seat-back flight tracking screens on my United Airlines flight call it the Gulf of Mexico. I'll check again when I come back in 10 days. If they've changed it, I will make sure they hear all about it.
Whew! Other than flying into powerlines, another pilot in our group and I had the biggest no–no experience in #paragliding today: mid-air collision. Luckily, we were at the same altitude and it was just our wingtips that collided and then came untangled after a few seconds. Both of us and our gliders are fine.
Another guy in our group was hit by a pilot from a competition that was happening. That comp pilot's feet hit the top of the glider and ripped part of it open, so our groupmate pilot had to land on a partially deflated wing.
Two in one day is...bad. The other pilot and I have the exact same recollection of what happened, but hopefully some of the guides saw it and can help with a debrief.
But, hey, my launch and landing were perfect.
#Blep of La Unión, the nearest town to our hotel.
Not sure how much I'll post, but I'll thread this Colombia trip.
#paragliging in #Colombia
Things have been a little bumpy this week, between me having some low-grade stomach bug and the weather being flaky, but today was awesome. Best flight ever.
Yesterday and this morning, we had an extremely narrow launch window between when the clouds lifted high enough above launch to fly but before the rain started up on the mountain behind us. About 30 minutes to get all of us in the air, but we did it.
We were able to stay on the lower ridges of the mountains and gain altitude. As the rain moved east, it pushed us out into the valley but by then the thermals were working really well.
I was with my group and guide for a while, but then a couple people landed out and I ended up getting lucky and catching a good climb out over the town of Zarzal. Our guide had to land, so I played around a bit at cloudbase – literally the wispy underside of the clouds at the top of the thermals – then half heartedly headed north on a long glide to landing.
On our first push out to the valley, I did manage to get my phone out and snap a photo of the glider in front of me. Zarzal is the small town we're headed toward in the distance.
Being a fairly novice pilot means that I really don't have the free hands or the headspace to operate a better camera, but the photo possibilities on a day like this are awesome. One of these days I'll get there.
The other thing I've been doing, either up at launch while "parawaiting" for good weather or after I've landed while I'm waiting for the retrieve vehicle, is to snap photos for iNaturalist. I recently started using my mostly-dormant account for fun. I've probably got 60 or 70 different species observations to upload, mostly plants. And this is just what are probably considered common weeds around roadsides and farm fields. I got 20 new plant species this afternoon alone, plus this really cool beetle and spider.
By the way, anywhere there is an active paragliding site, there is probably a school or a company that offers tandem flights. I would totally recommend it to anyone. It's really quite an amazing experience. Though I haven't done any skydiving, paragliding is very different. It's slower and calmer. If the conditions are good, you get to just hang out up there and float around. And, yes, we carry reserve parachutes in case something goes terribly wrong.
The nice thing about playing amateur naturalist after landing is that by switching gears, what would otherwise be an unremarkable 10 minute walk to the road becomes a whole other hour-long adventure.
Today's #paragliding flight nearly got rained out at launch. I got in the air, but conditions were so wet and non-thermic that I had a 15 minute sled ride to a nice grassy sheep pasture landing. This was the last formal day of the tour, but a bunch of us don't have flights out of Calí until late tomorrow night or Tuesday, so we're going to get a day of flying in at Piedechinche, which is a short hop from the airport.
Spending a few days in Bogotá next, so expect pictures of street art like last year.
A nice little storm moved across El Valle del Cauca to our north just before dinner. got a few bolts, this one being the best.
They have the funniest signs in Colombia. I never did figure out exactly what this one was supposed to warn us about.
It's not warning of a "serpentine" road ahead because the road is straight. It's also not a particularly dangerous stretch of road, and its doubtfully a slippery one. Maybe a snake crossing zone?
A bunch of us got in a day of flying at Piedechinche, before most catch flights home tonight or tomorrow morning.
Storms started building after about an hour, so those of us still in the air headed in. The lift was so strong and consistent that I had to do what's called "going on bar" to push forward away from the mountains and lose altitude to get to the landing zone.
I just barely got the glider packed up as the rain started. One of us landed in the pouring rain, unfortunately.
First pic is someone launching. Zoom in to the sky to see all the gliders in the air. Second pic is the little burger and beer place across the street from the landing zone, everyone taking cover from the storm.
#paragliding #colombia
I've been trying to minimize news consumption this week, but just reading that a whole bunch of FAA employees were fired makes me consider changing my flight home to Mexico City, then to Hermosillo and taking a bus from there to Phoenix to get my truck. That would avoid being under the auspices of the FAA.
FFS what the actual hell.
Got to Bogotá this morning. It makes me so stupidly happy to wander aimlessly around an unfamiliar city. Though this is the same part I was in last year so it's not entirely new.
This is Plaza BirdFlu...I mean Plaza Bolivar. You can buy little packs of corn to feed the pigeons and then take selfies of them sitting on your head and shoulders. This seems to be a thing amongst tourists.
Carrera 7, Bogota, a kilometer of which has been turned into a pedestrian street. It is always lively during the day. At night, things shut down and all the shops pull down their steel rollup doors. Each door has some fabulous street art, so it's like a roll-up art museum that appears every night. I was here about a year ago and posted a bunch of photos if you go back through my timeline.
One of my favorite things to do here is photograph street art, so I'll have more to show at some point.
Bogotá is big on street art. Lots of recurring themes, punk being one. These images make me feel so square nowadays. But the true punk spirit is on the inside, right?
More Bogotá street art.
The text translates as "Great geniuses begin great works that can only be finished with work."
I want to post a ton more of these, but I've been indoors getting work done for a few hours and want to go back out. Maybe I'll post more and ask others for alt text, since that's what takes so long and is holding me up.
#Bogota #StreetArt
Jaguars are very common theme.
I'm going to try this: I'll post a bunch of pics and if others want to write alt text, I can add it in later. Thanks in advance.
#Alt4Me
These adorable characters are part of a large panel that, because of the narrowness of the street, is too hard to photograph in one shot.
Indigenous people are everywhere in Bogotá street art, but I wonder how much in the rest of society.
More jaguars. #Bogota #StreetArt
#ALT4me
What's the best ask-for-alt hashtag to use?
I'm at a little square in Bogotá that turns into an informal skate park in the evenings. I was here last year watching the kids do tricks. It's just a fun scene, people hanging out, kids riding around in their skateboards plus a few trick bikes and some dogs.
This would be totally illegal in the uptight U.S.
Americans live in such a weird isolated bubble.
lol a teenage skater just tried to sell me marijuana and "coca" — I don't know if he meant coca leaf or cocaine. I told him I like to come here and watch the skaters! That seemed cool to him.
This part of Bogotá is not particularly clean or fancy, resembling just about every major US city I've been to, but the night vibe is so totally different. People are just...out and about, doing things, enjoying life.
A comparable place in say, San Francisco or Oakland, at this time of night, would feel sketchy. That's the part that I like about most of the Latin American cities I've been to. There's a vibrant street life, both day and night. Everyone always seems way more chill than the US.
On the other hand,… Wait, someone has a llama on a string. They are taking their llama for a walk down the street… Anyway, on the other hand, the air pollution from the narrow streets and lack of an emission controls would lead anybody to an early grave.
This is the little square. Right out in front of the Gold Museum in Bogotá.
@Mikal Because Air Traffic Control is for woke feminazis. 
So I shouldn't have to worry because they're all gone now, right? I feel so safe.
@Mikal The plaza culture in Latine countries is *really* cool, Especially because it keeps updating, from just walking to horseback to lowriders to skateboards.
Yeah, just sitting around and taking it all in is one of my favorite things to do. Every time, one of the first things to hit me is the list of all the structural and cultural barriers to anything like this existing in most of the United States. Fun that you don't have to pay for is damn near illegal.
@Mikal every problem with street life in SF is a problem about permitting, planning, transit :/
We feel pretty sad for ourselves too. And the rest of the world that will be affected by our decomposing empire.
@Mikal Painting on exterior wall shows a Shaman blowing smoke and the smoke becomes the head of a jaguar, with its jaws open, as if in a roar.. with the extension of smoke exiting from its mouth. The windows on the wall and the sidewalk can be seen along with a corner of a yellow, red blue triangular corner that could be part of the painting or the original wall. Shaman looks calm, steady in warm skin tones. Jaguar looks like spirit in blues, greys and white. #AltText
Thanks! Added it.
@Mikal "Beware snakes on the road". We got them for armadillos, possums, and other critters too in some regions
It's very cute. Here in the US, we have signs about deer and cows in the road but, mostly, no one cares about reptiles.