Costa Rica Paragliding 3

Caldera was on!

After a few days in Dominical, we headed back north to fly at Caldera. It was very busy with tandem flights (two pilots doing tandem after tandem all afternoon long) but there were only about four solo pilots so despite there being a lot of people hanging around at launch, it wasn't that busy in the air.

I really liked this site once I got well above the ridge line and didn't have to worry about trees. And it's a pretty easy bail-out to the official landing zone or the beach so, relatively speaking, was reasonably stress free.

Most of the photos are of Andrew (red, white and yellow wing).

We mostly flew along the front ridge but, with enough height, we were able to head over to the point
(near the lower greenish coloured glider).

If you look closely, you can see 4-5 gliders just left of centre of the photo.

I just happened to luck out getting the other glider and the boat in the photo with me!

The official landing zone is just to the left of the buildings (yes, a cow pasture) but all of us landed on the beach.

The launch site is very nice.  An area with shade and a nice restaurant too! The very experienced tandem pilots top-landed which looked very tricky and required a tremendous amount of skill! 

The launch site is the bare patch along the ridge; the best lift was at the far end of the ridge; when we got enough height we flew over to the point where this photo is taken from. I came in for landing soon after taking this photo. 

We thought there might be opportunity for a second flight but wind shifted and the clouds came in.
All in all, a great day of flying!

Costa Rica Paragliding 1

After one night in San Jose, we were picked up by our guide, Nick Crane. It's been awesome to have all the logistics of getting to launch and getting picked up at landing figured out for us. Not to mention having someone experienced and knowledgable to give us site briefings and give us a bit of instruction and paragliding tips. 

For the first couple nights we stayed near Caldera at a place that is away from the main town and located in a beautiful quiet area. It was built as a B&B for paragliding pilots but, unfortunately, the owner (Grampa Ninja) passed away recently and the home and property is in a state of flux and will likely be sold in the near future. 

View from the upper balcony.

Morning tea and relaxing with a book.

Main floor pool. Saw toads and iguanas in the area.

In another "it's a small world" example, we arrived at the launch site in Jaco on the first day and heard someone say, "Shelley & Andrew?" It was Jeff Alzner and his girlfriend, Alison. Jeff is a climbing friend who was with us on several of our Himalayan climbing expeditions. Alison is also a paragliding pilot. 

Alison, me, Jeff, Andrew

Our first two flying days were at Jaco. I found it a bit challenging in that it was a ridge soaring site but also provided some thermals. The wind conditions weren't really strong and it was difficult to stay up. Everyone was really "scratching" along the ridge. I like to stay a bit further away from terrain but did manage to get some good lift on one of my flights (at one point was up higher than anyone else) and stayed up for 20 minutes. Andrew was better, and probably more daring and confident, and he managed a couple 40 minute flights. The rest were 5-15 minute flights.

Having said all that, we certainly couldn't complain about the views!

Looking out toward the ocean and the town of Jaco.

The road up to launch.

The launch is the grey gravelled area just below the vehicles.

View of the lovely big landing zone.

Andrew in the air. 

Andrew lining up his approach for landing 

Yesterday was forecasted to be a good flying day at Caldera, known for its great ridge soaring. We waited several hours but things never really came around and eventually we all just launched, got in a couple turns and landed on the beach for a 2-5 minute ride. Again, the view was great and thankfully there was shade and a nice restaurant at the launch site!

The Caldera launch site.

And in a non-paragliding activity, we stopped at the "Crocodile Bridge" where there are always lots of crocs lazing on the bank and in the river. We counted seven on land and at least 11 that we could see in the water. 

We've now moved a couple hours further south to Dominical and hoping to get some good flights in here over the next few days.