Paragliding at Valle de Bravo, Mexico

nice big landing area

When we were "planning" this trip (a few random conversations) we decided we weren't going to go to Valle de Bravo. Although it's one of the top paragliding sites in the world, it's also busy, and can be challenging. But by the time we visited the monarch butterfly sites, we were quite close so we figured we should at least have a look. And that evolved into we might as well try flying there. We knew people bring groups here that include beginners, so it seemed feasible.

Because of the reputation we hooked up with a local paragliding instructor, Marko Hrgetic (Flumen Paragliding), and his group. I was actually thinking of finding a local Mexican company but came across Marko’s web site and he was instructing rather than just offering tandems so it seemed more what we were looking for. I didn’t realize at first that he had competed in the last X Alps.

Also, since there are so many people (we counted about 50 paragliders while we were there) it's nice to be in a group. Thankfully, as less experienced pilots we launched earlier in the morning and later in the afternoon than most people. Although, if you managed to stay up after an early morning launch, then it wouldn’t be long before everyone else came out to play. I told myself it was good practice to fly with other people but I still don’t like it. Flying is challenging enough without constantly having to be on guard for collisions (which do happen) As with driving, it isn’t so bad if everyone is rational, but there’s always someone who isn’t.

For some reason I was nervous about flying at Valle. Partly the reputation, partly the potential crowds, partly not wanting to get in the way of good pilots. We emailed but hadn’t received an answer by the end of the day. The next morning we got up at 7:30 to find an email that they were heading out at 8:15. My first thought was to rush to get ready but it would have been tight so we decided to wait a day. Instead we wandered over and found the meeting place and introduced ourselves. Later we drove over to check out the landing zone. We had a point on the map but it took us awhile to find the access road. It’s always nice to walk the LZ before landing there. In this case it’s not on the way to launch so we wouldn’t have seen it otherwise. (Other than from high above.)

As I fully expected, the flying went fine. Shelley was happy to launch first since she wasn’t hung up on a long flight. Most people don’t want to go first in the morning because if the thermals haven’t started you end up with a short flight.

In hindsight we should have come earlier in the season. By February conditions are getting strong at midday, which meant we wanted to be down by 11:30, limiting our morning flights to under an hour. And the days we flew the winds didn’t die down till late in the day, limiting evening flights to 30 min or so (before the sun went down.)

It was too far (about 45 min drive) to go back to town between flights so we hung out at the landing area. Luckily there was shade and a couple of taco stands. But it made for a long day e.g. leaving the hotel at 8am and getting back at 8pm.

The flying was good. It wasn’t too rough and there were usually enough thermals for even beginners to stay up. Most people come to Valle to fly cross country but we stuck around launch. I got high enough to cross to the next peak - El Piñon - but didn’t get up the nerve to go on my own.

We only ended up flying for a few days. We missed our last day because I got sick and spent  the night throwing up. Unpleasant, but par for the course. No matter how careful you are with what you eat and drink, there are always plenty of opportunities to fall prey to some unfamiliar bug. After that Marko had a group of new students and our hotel was full for the weekend so we moved on. But we enjoyed flying at Valle and would be happy to come back sometime. Marko was great and we'd be happy to work with him again.

waiting for the thermals to start

Photos thanks to Shelley. See also her blog post