The first round of the PWC is being held a few hundred kilometers north of Sao Paulo, Brazil, in a city called Pocos de Caldas. The pwc always runs from a Saturday through the next saturday, with the first Saturday being registration and practice flying, and the comp beginning on Sunday. I've come a few days early to fly in a 2 day local Brazilian mini comp at a site about 45 minutes south of here.
Travel down here was pretty good. United treated me well as always but had mechanical difficulties getting going out of Chicago. We left about 3 hours late but the 10 and a half hour flight was very pleasant. I was thinking that they were going to have to cancel the flight all together so I was very happy when I heard the announcement that they had made repairs and we would be on our way soon. Made pretty easy connections in Sao Paulo for the bus ride up north to Pocos de Caldas - about 4 hours. I did have a few moments in the bus station where I had to climb stairs with my 2 50 lb duffels to purchase my ticket and just couldn't physically do it while trying to be easy on my frozen shoulder. I managed to look pathetic enough that a nice young man noticed my predicament and carried my glider for me....
Pocos is nice and the people are very friendly as seems to be the norm in the smaller cities of Brazil. This town seems to be quite old and is a resort town of sorts with many large old hotels and spas and even an old decommissioned monorail which runs along the river through the city. There is a huge city park just across the street which we walk through to get to the gondola which takes us up to the launch area. In the center is a large water jet display which shoots all kinds of water jets high into the air from the center of a small pond. In the center of the pond is also a small building from which is played all kinds of classical music. I can't really tell if the water jets are meant to be timed with the music or not but it's entertaining none the less...
Weather forecast is not looking good so it may be challenging to get in some good racing.
1 comment:
GOOD LUCK JACK!
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