Veintiquatro

Average 6:00 am sky. Epic day ahead. 

Today I flew tandem with Christian, a trauma specialist who directs emergency surgery at two different hospitals. We had an interesting discussion on the way up the hill today. Trauma, while urgent and serious, often is very interesting and there are usually lots of stories to be told. He had lots. 

5 people opted to hike up today with Redbull athlete Dawn, but even with extra seats folks still rode atop the Cipri. 

I paced myself with the heavy tandem wing only to see a local guy carrying two tandems at the same time. Dang!

There was no north wind today and everyone who wanted to, got up fairly easily and were able to hang out at cloudbase to meet up with the rest if thier groups. Climbs were gentle at first, but soon got stronger as the day heated up. 

Rob Milley hit some strong turbulence over the house thermal, lost control of his wing and threw his reserve parachute. It opened quickly and he landed on the steep side of the house thermal hill with no injury whatsoever. We dispatched some locals to help him get back and he was able to ride a horse back to the vehicles, get a ride down and eventually repack his reserve parachute at the hotel later that day. 

I gifted Rob some limes, Vodka and a toy parachute for his quick and decisive thinking today. Bravo!

Cristian and I had a great flight. (3:20). We flew nearly the whole "box" but opted to land short of Roldanillo just to be safe.

Rob Sporrer and Hugh over Zarsal. 

We got low, really low, once but for a low save and added another hour or more to our flight. Yesss!

Oh what a great sky we had today. 

The west wind came through just as the last pilots landed. Perfect. 

Rob Sporrer landed next on his tandem with Hugh, and we posed to celebrate. 

Brian and Phyllis landeding.     

Rob G., who was a newer pilot in Brian's group landed with us again. He is having incredible flights each day. Wow!

We were picked up by Cipri and in no time were eating roasted chicken and drinking smoothies. Everyone down safe. 

Ahhhh. Pineapple mango for me today. 

Dinner was was pork loins, served at 7 pm after Brian finished his talk that began at 5:30. After eating and reviewing he day with my group, I retreated to my room to rest and blog a bit. 

Tonight I will try to chat with my family via FaceTime if all goes well. IPhones are great, but the wifi at the hotel limits the potential at times. Fingers crossed. 

Buenos noches,

Martín