South America and South Africa

Iquique is a city with a population of approximately 100,000 people squeezed in between the Pacific Ocean and the Atacama desert. It is well known among surfers and paragliders, which come here from all around the world to enjoy the excellent flying in Alto Hospicio and Pala Buque, the constantly fine weather, 360 days of the year are flyable, and the very good infrastructure.

When I arrived I was surprised because I expected a somewhat smaller city and also a smaller flightpark Altazor, where I stayed. Due to its location between the ocean and the desert and additionally limited through a huge sand dune that is projected to become a UNESCO World Heritage the city can only grow by the erection of high-rise buildings. Considering it is built in a seismic active area, that the last big earthquake occurred about 100 years ago, that the next big one is overdue, and that the larger part of Iquique is built on sea-level it appears to be only a question of time until the city is doomed to be washed away by a big tsunami following an earthquake. Nevertheless it is heavily growing – when Philipp Maltry started to develop the flightpark 10ish years ago the city was a few km away, now the flightpark is surrounded by 15-story houses.

The flightpark itself meanwhile has space for 70 guests, who sleep in refurbished oversea containers. There are two communal kitchens and most of the containers have a little bathroom. Usually groups of pilots are coming with organized trips, when I was there there were for instance groups from Brazil and Argentina. Additionally there is a bunch of individuals from around the world who form an own group, fly together, and have barbeques (“assados”) in the communal area every now and then. When I was there these guys came from Sweden (Mats), Austria (Stefan), the U.S. (Tommy), England (Joseph), and France (Hugo). The other guys except Joseph were regulars and Mats and Tommy are staying several months. There is also interaction between the groups but according to Stefan this is unfortunately decreasing the bigger the flightpark grows. Nevertheless after Stefan has encouraged me I made contact with Pablo from Argentina, a flight instructor from the flying site of Cuchi Corral close to Cordoba, who I will visit next week (the Iquazu waterfalls were sacrifized).

One flying site is Alta Hospicio about 400 metres above the flightpark and the preferred site for the morning flights. It is excellent for thermaling and a good launch for cross country flights. There are many options to land, one right behind the flightpark, and also one at the beach of Cavancha, after flying over the city. As there are almost no options to land in the city one needs enough altitude to be sure to reach the beach. The first time I was doing that together with Stefan and Mats who showed me also the thermals I was full of bubbling energy when I finally landed safely at the beach. It was so great flying over the city and watching the shore and the sealions from above. Thereafter we had lunch at a good fish restaurant.

The other flying site is Pala Buque, a among acro pilots world-wide renowned 60 m dune due to its constantly strong wind from the sea, which allows all kind of manouvers without the necessity to land. While I was there one of the top ten acro pilots was in the flightpark, going with its friends in the afternoon to Pala Buque. The more the day proceeds the conditions get weaker and also average pilots can launch. It is then still more a question of landing then of staying up but when I was flying after effortlessly gaining an altitude of 500 m the air was very smooth so that it was a real pleasure to fly there.

I enjoyed so much being there the last thirteen days, having all these great flights and the camaraderie with the other pilots. It would be nice to return soon but given the long flights and the costs to get there this is clearly not something for every year. Nevertheless I aim to stay in contact with some of the pilots flying in Europe to meet up again.

(www.altazor.cl)