Sunday

After a mostly relaxing day yesterday, today began with much confusion, which seems to be the norm so far... yesterday I packed up my stuff in the am thinking that I was going to be moving to this nice place the organizers had set up for myself, the pwc observer, Niki the technical director from England, and one other. I left my things in a friends room where they remained all day. I finally gave up around 10pm on the idea that I was actually going to make it to this other accomodation and rechecked back into the same hotel assuring them that I would only be there for one more night. Of course, everything had changed during the course of the night. The organizer (Lucho) had planned this comp around a new launch that they've developed which is about a 45 minute drive up into the mountains behind Roldanillo. All the logistics were planned around that location.... lodging, retreival, etc... when the Technical director and PWC observer got onsite and observed the new launch in action, they informed the organizer, in very plain terms, that there was no way that they would ever see a PWC event at that location. So now we are back to the traditional launch, which is accessed from a completely different direction from Roldanillo. Seeing as how most of the pilots were staying on this large farm up by the new launch, this would involve almost 1:45 min of driving in the am just to get to launch, not to mention driving back up the mountain for scoring, etc... It became obvious in a hurry that this wasn't going to work....

On top of everything else we woke to solid overcast and dismal looking conditions.
Apparently Niki and Leonardo, the pwc official observer on site, made their way on their own yesterday up the mountain and found this other farm house where the 4 of us were to be staying.... I guess their were some issues with the owner or other problems which are making this place not an option anymore - don't really know any particulars because I wasn't able to talk with Niki today do to the fact that, get this, she and Leonardo were apparently "forgoten about" today and not picked up and included in the days activities. Today's activities included early morning chaos highlighted by gps uploads by the scorekeeper accomplished in his underware. Next was the amazing race to get everyone and their gliders loaded into any one of a number of vehicles for the mad dash up to the traditional launch site. I'm looking at the wx conditions thinking "hmmm, it looks like it would take at least 4 hours for any possibility of anything happening in terms of flying". I'm doing this while racing to go back to my hotel room and get my glider, of course giving up any option to address 'pressing' physiological concerns, brush my teeth, etc...

So, standing room only in a bus which is a "20 minute" drive to launch. 45 minutes later we arrive at the end of the paved road, several thousand feet up into the mountains to the north of Roldanillo. It has been raining in the area and looks to be getting ready to rain more.. Another "hmmm, and why didn't the organizer just send someone up the mountain earlier to assess the conditions?" Now everyone is unloaded and having coffee and snacks at the small store nearby. My glider is on the top of a load of wings in a dump truck which is uncovered sitting nearby. I won the first race of the day by being the first one to get my glider off the truck and undercover before the downpour started. There is plenty of shelter here and I spend the next hour visiting and enjoying conversation with various pilots from different places... Really friendly people and I really want to fly as my flight on Friday was quite enjoyable and my wing with it's new lines is really hungry to fly as well.

After an hour or so socializing, the weather began to 'cycle' and clear up somewhat, and soon a loud voice boomed something in espanol which apparantely meant that we were going to launch "just up the hill". I couldn't help but another "hmmm... as wet as the ground now is, as soon as the sun comes out, the whole area is going to just explode with more clouds and rain". Not to worry, we always get to fly here even when it rains in the morning" Ok, fine.... 30 minutes later driving on pretty good gravel roads it's beginning to rain lightly. We have to walk the last stretch about 10 min and then the launch is up on a hillside above the road. Now I'm seeing why they really can't wait around too much in Roldanillo because it's pretty time consuming and a logistical challeng getting 150 pilots and their wings up to this launch in time to set up, call a task, and have a race...

So now here we all are up at launch, in the clouds, and the rain is starting again. There were many Jeeps and other private vehicles that had driven all the way to launch so here I didn't win the next race but was clearly in the top ten finishers finding a way with my glider into the covered back of one of the jeeps... Many pilots had collected their wings and walked up to the actual hillside launch area and were now officially getting wet.... In the back of this Jeep I remained for the next hour while it continued to rain and then finally began to cycle again and look promising.... this is when they officially "called the day" and the trek back down the mountain began. The reason they called the day even though things were starting to look promising was because there is a local phenomena in this region of Colombia where the strong sea breezes from the Pacific ocean move inland to this area and it blows over the back strongly every early afternoon. When we race here we fly away from this area after starting the race and go across the valley where the sea winds don't happen. Anyway, I held strong to my dry position and wasn't gonna give it up for anything. This proved to be a good move as I was one of the first to get back down to Roldanillo. I couldn't even see out of the back of the Jeep as there were so many pilots just standing on the bumper and hanging on to anything all the way back to Roldanillo.

My new Colombian friend, Sebastian, is a pilot for "Flex Jets" which is a huge corporate jet charter company, got into Roldanillo last night. He has been running some language barrier interference for me and has been very helpful since he arrived. He had been talking with the organizer and this morning kind of brought me up to date on what was going on. The first thing he says is "don't give up your hotel room" because we are going to be using the traditional launch. I'm thinking I've already checked in and out of my hotel twice, and switched rooms, etc... generally been a pain in the butt for the hotel. Sebastian went over and get me set up for the rest of the week no problemo. I'm happy cuz my room is in a quiet part of the hotel, and I have hot water. No AC but there is a nice fan and it's plenty comfortable.

Today when I got back to my room I luxuriated with a nice long nap and then headed back to the pool club where they are just finishing up a major birthday bash for a 6 year old. It's been total mayhem and now I'm relishing the quiet. This place is nice and the wireless internet is good. I've not spoken with Lucho about staying anywhere else... he's never even approached me to talk about anything. There's no way I'm leaving my hotel room at this point.... It's perfectly located right in the heart of things here in Roldanillo.

Even though I was very careful with my expectations about the organization here, I'm a bit disappointed in things thus far. It turns out that last night they had a big opening ceremony up at the "old headquarters" farm with the Mayor of Roldanillo in attendance, etc... None of the pilots staying in Roldanillo even knew this was happening, including myself. I was up there at 5 pm registering and talking to Lucho and there was no mention, posting, word of mouth or nothing to let us know about the evenings activities. I do enjoy these things and this is part of the reason I torture myself with such long travel sessions to far away places...

This is a very interesting place and the culture seems traditional and very catholic. The central square or "park" is just full of people now who I think travel into the "big city" from the countryside on Sundays to visit and attend church, etc... Mothers and daughters or two friends always walk physically touching one another - a hand in hand or a hand on a shoulder. When I walk through the park there are many eyes on me - a tall gringo who is obviously from some place far away... The term "mutt" takes on a whole new meaning here. The original pure breed dog that started the line of some of the dogs around this place probably is a hundred years old!! You can't even begin to guess what the original line might have been.

I've started to do my own weather forecast looking at my XC Skies subscription and tomorow looks iffy but could happen with light conditions. The days after look even better. It hasn't rained here in literally months so hopefully things arn't changing...I'll try and get some pics posted soon..
Need to race..
Jack