This page contains Nothing But Cross Country in Peru, the first article of a three part series, More South American Adventrues which was published in the Janurary, February and March 2009 issues of Hang Gliding and Paragliding Magazine.
More South American Adventures Part I
Nothing But Cross Country in Peru
No one can say I didn't know better. With my share of "There I was" stories from Peru, I know how awesome and intense it is to play in the high Andes. Almost dead from pulmonary edema camped at 20,000' when I was seventeen. Dangling from ice tools, thrashing onto a high mushroomed ridge, solo, when a minivan size block cut loose, leaving my feet swinging below me. At first light, watching a corniced ridge collapse thousands of feet above. A full minute later the avalanche debris arrived, leaving me half buried and bleeding in the run out zone at the bottom of the face. I have found my share of adventure in these mountains. And all before I learned to paraglide.
Another field turned for potatoes; building a wall on the Jangas Launch above Huaraz, Peru. Photo: Julio Olaza. 
Flying over the Jangas launch with sticks and plastic bags in the lines, again. Photo: Julio Olaza.
July 2007 was a busy summer back home in Colorado and not the best time for a long trip, but my Peruvian born wife bought the tickets and we left. After a day of coastal flying, the trip started with a quick jaunt up to Huaraz, visiting friends, looking for property and of course flying.
Flying from Jangas, above Huaraz, Peru, the Cordillera Blanca across the valley.
On a short cross-country flight from the nearby launch above Jangas, I found cloud base above 15K and struck off cross-country. With several nice climbs, flying down wind, I passed the city. My next glide took me toward a sweet looking knob, several thousand feet above the valley, facing the morning sun and prevailing valley winds. As I climbed over this perfect trigger I saw a new road switch backing up the far side and wondered if this was what friends had told me about as soon as I got to town; a possible new site near town with a new road to it. After all these visits my friends, none of whom are pilots, know just what I'm looking for. Sure enough, this was perfect.
Flying from the Jangas launch with the Cordillera Blanca across the valley. Photo: Julio Olaza
My very good friend, Julio, in the middle of another busy season guiding mountain biking ( www.chakinaniperu.com ), finally had a free day so we set out for a look. Julio brought a bike, and we invited professional photographer, Beto Santillo, ( www.andesmadness.com ) who brought a selection of lenses. At the end of the road we found a beautiful lake, perfect launch and surely some of the most beautiful views of the Cordillera Blanca. The vista is from over twelve thousand feet, a panorama across the Rio Santa Cruz valley, with the southern end of the Cordillera Blanca right in your face. The vantage is directly up several quebradas, quechua for the steep narrow canyons that lead to high glacier filled cirques. North lies the glistening double summits of Nevado Huascaran. At 22,500 feet, second tallest peak in the Andes. Nevado Huantsan, triangular, icy and hulking is the closest to this viewpoint. Beto soon filled a memory card with photos to drool over.
Looking back toward the Jangas launch, Huaraz, Peru.
Regular cycles blew up the grassy face. I quickly found an appropriately grassy patch and laid out. In a few passes I climbed over the top of the hill. With camera out, documenting the location and topography I realized this new site is the closest and perhaps best site near to Huaraz, a town better known as a center for climbing and trekking than paragliding.
Flying cross-country toward the city of Huaraz, Peru, from the Jangas launch.
I only flew a couple days there before returning to Lima for some serious "Peruvian green card" paperwork. Typically convoluted immigration laws required that I apply for a special visa while in country, then leave to pick it up at a foreign consulate, reenter the country on the new visa, and only then be able to apply for a Carnet de Extranjeria. The process is enormously complex and difficult, very much reminding my wife and me of the paperwork we went through when we got married and she moved to the US.
We had them send my paperwork to the Peruvian Consulate in La Paz, Bolivia. The cheapest (and therefore, for us: best) way to travel there, and avoid the twenty four hour bus ride from Lima, is to first fly to Cuzco, and after some flying, bus from there. We arranged to stay with a friend and her family while in Cuzco. Not having flown over the Sacred Valley of the Incas for several years, I was psyched for the often rowdy, huge air.
Heading out from Cerro Sacro past Cuzco, Peru, with a developing sky.
The morning we arrived from the coast, our friends' mother explained that the last several months they raised a couple guinea pigs for us. Tomorrow, Sunday, they planned a special mid-day meal. Happily Ursula smiled at me. We planned to make this a trip full of cultural emersion. I have eaten guinea pig enough that it's no longer novel. More importantly, I realized this would keep me from flying the next day. It was only nine am so I grabbed my pack and jumped on a bus to launch.
It was a classic Cuzco day: base well over 18,000', puffy cumulous quickly turning into dark scary masses of suck before spitting rain and hail. I got off the hill just after noon and flew down the range staying just in front of the growing overdevelopment. I wanted to close my eyes for half my three sixties so I wouldn't have to look back at what was going on behind. Staying just one jump in front of the mayhem, I got to the end of the main ridge that the Cerro Sacro launch sits on.
Getting to the first valley crossing south of launch above the town of Pisac, Peru.
Already today I cored the strongest climbs of the year, barely controlling my wing as it fought it's way back to base again and again. After several visits to Dinosaur Colorado and Mingus Mountain in Arizona I expected a higher bump tolerance. But this was a whole different animal. Once again, Cuzco proved to be the biggest air since I'd last gotten worked here.
I jumped the highway and the first main valley south, already beyond Cuzco city. I approached base again over the far ridge, and contemplated a route deeper in the mountains, following the road to Ocongate off in the distance. I chose the typical main valley run, with better looking conditions on the far side on the main valley. Airline flights used to not be scheduled in the afternoon into Cuzco because conditions get so strong. With the unbelievable popularity of Macchu Picchu, (voted one of the seven most crowded wonders of the world), now flights come in all day. I knew the jetliner approach to the airport well, especially since I'd done it that morning, to drop out of the hazy upper level clouds just beyond town, lining up with the airport.
Going XC south of Cuzco, Peru.
This was exactly where I was, a little below base, hoping to give and get some warning if a plane showed up while I crossed the valley, and wondered what to do if faced with an incoming airliner. Sure enough, I just started off when a large passenger plane dropped out of the clouds and passed just above me on the way in. I wondered aloud whether that was scarier than the flying. Less in my hands to be sure, but nonetheless not too close a close call.
Looking back towards Cuzco, Peru, while running from the overdevelopment.
The other side of the valley was working well and I never got low again over the next several hours. The lofty-high and beautiful sacred peak, Nevado Ausungate, looked so far off in the morning, but half way through the day I was passing by her. In Peru the larger mountains are thought of as gods, or Apus. I spoke quietly and sincerely with her, thanking her for letting me pass. More than twenty years ago I trekked around the peak and never returned to climb it as I planned. Maybe this flight was the ascent I'd dreamt of.
Flying cross-country with the Apu, Nevado Ausungate, in the distance.
Several hours south of Cuzco, Peru, flying past the Apu, Nevado Ausungate.
The afternoon wore on. Just beyond the large Lake Pomacanchi, sometime after four, a large cloud developed in front of me and started to fall out. It was time to change course. The obvious line was lost and I gave up by flying into a dead-end valley. I landed just beyond the last town after five and a half hours and one hundred nineteen kilometers.
The cloud just beyond Laguno Pomacanchi beginning to fall out.
One hundred nineteen kilometers is a long flight for Peru. A part-time Cuzco local, Richard Pethigal, posted a Peruvian distance record of118km on his website. We planned to meet this trip but he was caught in a dust devil doing a tandem and ended up with a broken jaw the same day as my flight. He saw me flying high over the local tandem site at El Mirador that day, and he still thought 119km was the record.
The cloud falling out beyond Laguno Pomacanchi, forcing a course change.
I just had one more pilot to check with, to confirm for myself, a new Peruvian distance record. Franz Schilter, an old friend, lives in Urubamba and owns the four-star hotel Sol Y Luna. Probably the best pilot in Peru, he pioneered many of Peru's flying sites and holds site records all over the country. We'd been in touch recently by email and I knew he was in Europe, but sure enough he wrote that he flew one town beyond in 1999 and again in 2000. In addition he thought Honza Rejmanek might have gone even further on a visit for the Cuzco Open competition. If these are the pilots who have flown further, I'm happy. Now I need to go back and try again...
A local taxi gave me a ride to the main highway and soon I caught a bus to Cuzco. I arrived after ten pm. The long day in the air took its toll on top of a bus ride from Huaraz two nights before, then the early flight that morning. My wife took no pity on me, and we went out to see a local band, Arco Iris, until late. I was beyond exhausted when we finally made it home.
The local welcome after landing.
My exhaustion ran deep and I felt kind of done with flying. Above Huaraz I found a new favorite launch and in Cuzco already scored a long flight. With camping gear, Ursula and I headed into the mountains for a trek. Known as the "New Macchu Picchu", Chaquequirao is several days hike from the trailhead. We went self-supported and when we arrived at the ruin, a Peruvian girl asked if we were going back the same way. I pulled out my map and realized if we crossed the range we would end up at the end of another classic trek around Nevado Salkantay that I had also done years before.
Tourist free ruins of Chaquequirao, Peru.
We asked some local arrieros, or mule drivers, about the route. They said crossing the range and coming out past Salkantay and Agua Calientes would add four days with pack animals. We counted our Soles and realized we barely had enough to hire a mule for Ursula and another for our packs. Needless to say, it was a great walk with snowy peaks appearing over fifteen thousand foot passes. Once again we turned a simple outing into adventure.
Broke and forced to hitch hike back to Cuzco, we stopped to perform a Pachamama offering before shivering our way over a high pass after midnight in the back of a pickup. The full moon illuminated Nevado Veronica, a perfect snow pyramid that looked only a few minutes away on that long night.
Tourist free ruins of Chaquequirao, Peru.
We felt satisfied. It was time to head into Bolivia for another visit. In 2001 we trekked but I didn't get to fly. This trip, with better contacts and more information, I had high hopes for paragliding this trip.
Go to More South American Adventures Part 2: Adventure, New Friends and Lots of Flying in Bolivia.
Go to More South American Adventures Part 3: Back To Peru, the High Andes and a Serious Accident.
Below are links to several Articles published in 2006:
Go to Forty Days Over Mongolia: A Paragliding Expedition to the Lands of Ghengis Khan.
Go to Dateline Kurai, Altay Republic: The Russian Paragliding Championships.
Go to A The Celelstial Tien Shan of Kyrgyzstan: Between Mountains and Sky.
Go to Paragliding In The Callejon De Huaylas.
Go to Paragliding Huaraz Peru.
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