4;30am wake up. Breakfast fruit plate. Rolling by 5:00. 6 hrs to Medellin by car. 6am gas stop for the big drive ahead.
Flacko is planning to fly with us it turns out, so that meant an additional driver, and of course Kita, Flacko's cute dog.
One more quick stop at a panaderia (bakery) for a croissant and a turnover filled with pineapple, cheese and ham, like a Hawaiian pizza roll of sorts.
The seats in both cars are adequate, but a few hours into the journey I opted to stretch out on one of the bench seats thanks to Dawn and Jim sharing the other one.
We stopped to take a restroom break (read: pee at the side of the road) and opened up the flaps on the sides of the jeep for a little more air circulation as the day began to warm up. It felt cool for the first hour this morning, but shorts, t-shirt and flip flops were more than adequate.
6 hours later we rolled into Medallin. The buildings were mostly tall and the valley was immense. The early am departure and the day driving up steep grades choked with smoke from trucks, cars and motorxyclea wore me out a bit and the others too.
We found our hostel and had lunch while they prepared our rooms. Matt, Dawn and Jim opted to stay and chill while the drivers, Shane, Deatin, Brian and I drove up to launch, overlooking the massive city.
The launch was grassy and smooth and the wind was coming in a little cross at a steady 14 mph or so. Lift was everywhere and thought my launch was less than graceful, I did topland later with considerable effort without any problems.
Flacko kited his wing for a while too, and the. The others came to land at sunset.
It was so worth it to go up for the flight and the view. Launch was at over 7000 feet and getting a thousand feet over is effortless. I have a slight headache now, but that is not surprising to me. I know I'll sleep well tonight.
A local XC pilot accosted me and said the weather looks good tomorrow and that his friends were going to fly XC to the south tomorrow and invited us to come along. How about that? We are planning the same thing. Local company is a welcome addition to the team. Looking forward to the first leg back towards La Union.
Goodnight from Medellin, Colombia.
Hasta mañana,
Martín
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