Colombia, confidence
I’ve been thinking about confidence, within the context of flying, as I’ve been writing the chapters about my progression with paragliding. Remarkably, I did precisely what I’ve been writing about, and achieved a goal I’d been after for a while. During my time in Colombia, I took my first cross country (XC) flight. I flew a distance of about 10km, roughly 6 mi.
I’ve had the skills to do this for a while, the ability (and desire) to climb in thermals, once I’ve found them. But the conditions to make a proper XC flight didn’t materialize last year as the season lulled into fall. Landing out, which is what you do when a cross country flight comes to its conclusion, is a daunting prospect in a place like Tiger. There’s I-90, forests and mountains, power lines, and so many bad places to land and people who’d love to sue you. Taking an XC flight was the next big step in my progression as a pilot and it would happen eventually, when the weather was right and I was ready.
My buddy Matt got me thinking about a trip to Colombia - he’d already bought his ticket. Not wanting to travel alone, I roped in a flying friend, Anton, who then recruited a friend of his. We’d travel there together, the three of us, and fly as much as we could. I took care of the travel arrangements, booking airfares and hotels. We stayed overnight in Miami so we could travel at a leisurely pace, free from layovers and nasty red eyes. We arrived as a trio, in another country, with even more of our flying friends in tow.
I said “no entiendo” and “lo siento” a lot, but we managed just fine with middling Spanish and interpretive gestures. The rides to launch took us through jungle, up steep and swirling mountain roads only accessible to 4WD vehicles. The air was dense and full and the clouds were never too far. We were in a valley in the Andes range, the Valle del Cauca.
The last flight I’d taken, according to my flight log, was in late September. Despite the rain and cold, I’d managed to do some kiting on dry days. Of course I was eager to fly but I wouldn’t push my limits - I’d fly cautiously and ease back into things slowly. Flying isn’t exactly like riding a bike in terms of muscle memory, but there are similarities. When I’m riding, even if I’ve been away from my bike for months, I know where my hands need to go, I can anticipate the way this steel machine will move with my body on it. I have a similar connection with my wing. We’ve been through a lot together and I can feel through it, almost like an extension of my body, another form of perception.
Launch was already crowded before the clouds started to clear and a channel of blue opened up, warming the valley below. Everyone was launching in quick succession, one after the other, flying out and climbing. My friends too, launched and away. I’m hearing them on the radio and I am about to fly. The nerves are there but I’ve checked my gear and it’s ready. I’m ready too. I know how to launch and land and fly, I know how to trust my wing and my instincts. I will be at ease once I’m in the air.
The wing comes overhead and I am in a group with a dozen other pilots, sharing a wide thermal, climbing and circling around. There are birds below us, which is a good sign. I can see the valley and what appears to be the town we’re staying in, to the north. I’m above other pilots, probably more skilled than me, on faster wings. They are moving north, northwest, finding climbs. I can follow them, I figure, especially if I climb higher and maintain a decent altitude. I didn’t set out to do a cross country flight today but that’s exactly what’s happening and I feel fine. I am calm and my body is relaxed. I see so many open fields that would be safe to land in and I trust myself to make good decisions.
On this trip, I wasn’t the newest and least experienced pilot in our group from Washington. Anton’s friend, an old skydiving buddy, was the newbie. He’d recently taken up the sport after many years of flying planes, jumping out of them, wingsuits, parachutes and more. The skydiver was outgoing and gregarious, loud and direct. He always wanted to show us something on his phone, which was adorable and infuriating. The skydiver was so new to paragliding that he hadn’t really even been trained, but had managed to obtain the P2 certification. I was alarmed, mostly because I had no desire to navigate medical care in a small, South American town for a reckless pilot I’d just met - that was not my idea of a good time. We offered guidance, Anton and I, to our overconfident friend. He was quite certain that the skills he’d mastered “flying” a skydiving canopy were transferrable, basically the same ones he’d need to fly a paraglider. Plus, he was an aircraft pilot, he flew real planes, big planes, and had thousands of flight hours. I admired his gusto but the unbridled confidence gave me pause. I’d seen this before, on a windy mountain in Eastern Washington, with a friend who had narrow miss after narrow miss, which just emboldened him. Minimum skill, maximum send seemed to be his philosophy.
Our skydiving friend, mercifully, bounced off the barbed wire fence instead of colliding with it. His GoPro footage illustrates a cascade of decisions, a lack of knowing and misplaced confidence. We were already flying in marginal conditions that were ill-suited for a brand new pilot, let alone one who’d skipped the essentials. I was glad he’d managed to avoid injury but the gleeful bragging was too much. I hoped he’d be more circumspect eventually.
There were flying days and weather days, roughly half and half. We rented scooters and rode around town, discovering places on the edges - arepas with pico, a bar with a woman behind it, singing along with every song. In the mornings, I sat at the pastry shop with a cafe con leche and jotted down notes, things we’d seen and done, funny situations that made me giggle.
On our last day in the town of Santa Elena, we had breakfast at the fancy hotel and the skydiver joined us as we ate omelets. He was quieter than usual, shoulders resigned. There was something he wanted to say, but didn’t know exactly how, he explained. “I really thought this would be easy, but it’s not. I understand that now.”
On the ride to the airport, our driver, who had also been our flying guide, spoke about humility and treating every flight as an opportunity to learn. The skydiver learned there are no shortcuts in paragliding, that near misses are cause for reflection. He probably knew this intuitively, from training people to skydive, but he hadn’t lived it until his boots met the fence. I’d learned something too, about confidence and trusting myself to push through discomfort and do something new, to continue trying. The chapter about this goal of flying out, going cross country, was already written and now I had lived it and taken notes.
Wonderful description of your trip and learning experiences for everyone.