Colima and Comala

Comala, another "Pueblo Magico", is only a short drive from Colima so we decided to spend a night there before heading back to Tapalpa. It's known as the "White Village of America" because, since the 1960's, all of the buildings have been painted white. As with most of the village squares, the church is the centrepiece and, in this case, it made a great backdrop for the town sign.

Our hotel had a few resident peacocks who showed off their feathered displays for us.

I really liked this mural showing off the volcanoes in the area -- Volcán de Colima and Nevado de Colima. Although we did not stop to take photos, we got great views of them on the drive to Tapalpa. 

In Colima (yes, I know I did these two in reverse order of visit but I liked the above Comala sign/photo better!), in addition to the paragliding and the ecoparc, we liked several of the statues that were placed on the street corners and in the main square. Unfortunately, the signage didn't provide much information and I couldn't find anything in a quick search online, but I feel there must be a story behind each of them. 

On the hike down from the paragliding launch I took the time to take a couple photos. This first one caught my eye because of the color.

And these, which we saw several of, looked like yellow roses but on large trees that had no leaves.

Flying at Colima

For a moment, I thought I was in Europe. So good is the La Cumbre paragliding launch site at Colima. Artificial turf covers a large level area and then slopes sharply down the hill.

Photo taken from TurismoColima.com and shows the full landscape of the temple and the launch site.

The above photo is from the Colima Tourism website. Another website provides a bit more information: A large portion of the hill has been declared "a zone of ecological protection, with the purpose of increasing the vegetal and animal species that live there."

And humorously, "On Sundays and holidays can be observed intrepid flying men who audaciously jump in gliders from the highest part of this promontory."

The chapel was started in 1954 and finished in 1961. Unfortunately, it has fallen into disrepair and the white sides shown in the photo above are now covered in graffiti.

I was still recovering from my hard landing in Tenancingo so have lots of photos of Andrew flying this site. It actually worked out well for one of us to drive retrieve as it was a long way around from the main LZ as well as other LZs. Although the local pilots have a good system that we could have tapped into if needed. They all meet at one of the hotels near the outskirts of the city, get a taxi to launch, and usually someone lands within a 20 minute walk in order to go back and get a vehicle.

We were fortunate enough to arrive in Colima mid-day on Friday so we had time to check out the main LZ. On Saturday, there were several pilots flying and they were very friendly and welcoming so we were able to chat with them for a bit and get a good briefing of the site. And let them go first to show where the thermals are.  :-)

Andrew landed at the main LZ the first day, as did the majority of pilots because the wind was mostly that direction. When I picked him up, we gave a couple other pilots a ride back into the city to get vehicles to retrieve their friends. Building up some good will!

On Sunday, Andrew had a great flight and headed cross country towards Colima with several other pilots and landed within walking distance of the city.

Over the weekend, we'd seen many locals hiking up the road. It's about 3 km on cobblestone road. Although there are a few paths that provide shortcuts, they looked very steep and not worth the effort. On Monday, deciding we needed to get some exercise (and also as a test for my leg), we hiked up.

Hiking up to launch.

Checking wind speed.

Andrew launched as the lone pilot but, as I walked/ran back down, a few other pilots were just on their way up. We again gave one of them a ride back into town after they'd landed.

The following day, after visiting the zoo, we went back up again but it was too windy to fly. We would definitely come back to this great flying site!

Andrew's blog post about flying at Colima.

Colima Ecoparc

We weren't expecting much, but the Ecoparc (zoo) in Colima was fantastic! Large, well kept, and such a variety of animals. We had two hours before we'd planned to be at the paragliding launch site and thought that would be more than enough time. We actually could have used more time at the zoo.

I went a bit crazy taking photos (250+) so there's lots of photos in this post and not much writing because 1) I can't remember what every one of these animals are and 2) some of them are fairly self explanatory. Enjoy!

I like the combination of color and shade and, unfortunately, captivity, in this photo. 

Interesting yellow ring around the eye.

These two seemed like good buddies. 

Photo is a bit hazy due to the bars between me and him.

This is actually more than we usually see of hippos!

Look up . . .  look waaaay up! 

The elusive domesticated house cat.

Now those are some impressive horns!

G'day mate!

Ouch!