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Spend 3 days flying in Las Aguilas and Vuelo Libre on Ruitoque’s beautiful long ridge, with morning thermic flights, XC potential, and afternoons flying in dynamic winds until well after sunset. Practice your kiting and top landings. More advanced pilots can go one day to La Malana launch to fly across the city of Bucaramanga and land at Ruitoque or beyond to the Mesa de Los Santos. |
On day 4, we depart south 1 hour to the Mesa de Los Santos where we will spend 3 nights in a farm setting, enjoying the flying sites around the Canon de Chicamocha and La Purnia. These are morning flying sites, where you can have a spectacular early sled ride in the Canon, or launch a little later for a thermic XC experience. At La Purnia, advanced pilots can thermal up and fly back into the Mesa to land at the lake at Acuarela Resort.
After a flight in the Canon, landing down by the Chicamocha River almost 4000 feet below, it is hot… so we pack up to Menzuly, a local resort with a cold natural swimming pool and typical Santander lunches. After a refreshing dip and a meal, we head back up to Mesa where you can hike, explore, or simply hang out in a hammock remembering your flights.
In the Mesa, there are many possible activities, such as waterskiing, horseback riding, biking, mudbaths, or swimming. It is a place of great natural beauty, lots of organic agriculture, and a mild cool climate. Besides working farms, there are many “gentleman’s farms” – country homes and estates that are weekend getaways for Bucaramanga’s families. If you are there on a Sunday, try a visit to the farmer’s market where you can buy local, hand-picked organic coffee, locally grown pineapple, and vegetables and fruits too numerous and unusual to name.
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On day 4, we depart south 1 hour to the Mesa de Los Santos where we will spend 3 nights in a farm setting, enjoying the flying sites around the Canon de Chicamocha and La Purnia. These are morning flying sites, where you can have a spectacular early sled ride in the Canon, or launch a little later for a thermic XC experience. At La Purnia, advanced pilots can thermal up and fly back into the Mesa to land at the lake at Acuarela Resort. After a flight in the Canon, landing down by the Chicamocha River almost 4000 feet below, it is hot… so we pack up to Menzuly, a local resort with a cold natural swimming pool and typical Santander lunches. After a refreshing dip and a meal, we head back up to Mesa where you can hike, explore, or simply hang out in a hammock remembering your flights. In the Mesa, there are many possible activities, such as waterskiing, horseback riding, biking, mudbaths, or swimming. It is a place of great natural beauty, lots of organic agriculture, and a mild cool climate. Besides working farms, there are many “gentleman’s farms” – country homes and estates that are weekend getaways for Bucaramanga’s families. If you are there on a Sunday, try a visit to the farmer’s market where you can buy local, hand-picked organic coffee, locally grown pineapple, and vegetables and fruits too numerous and unusual to name.
Leaving the Mesa, you take your last flight down to the river where we pick you up and head further south to the towns of Curiti, San Gil, and Barichara. We will spend 2 nights in Barichara, a colonial pueblo with unique and beautiful architecture where many artists live. It is a slow and peaceful town, with many shops selling incredible handcrafts, sculptures, paintings, and is renowned for its works in stone and rock all hewn by hand. The flying site overlooks the canyon where the Rio Suarez runs, and a mid morning flight here requires advanced skills in launching, thermalling, and landing. You can fly up and back over the town where there are a number of possible landing zones, or bail out down below in a small but useable field at La Esperanza, a local farm.
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We can spend an afternoon in nearby San Gil for a river rafting adventure, or discover the Parque Gallineral where you can walk, swim, and eat lunch. There is lots of shopping in San Gil as well, and the central park is the scene at night for good music and partying. 7 kilometers from Barichara is a small pueblo called Guane, with many fossils and a unique little museum that features artifacts from the indigenous people that lived there centuries ago, including a mummy. It’s worth the 1500 pesos (50 cents) entry fee and includes a live tour guide.
On the way back from Barichara, we can stop in Curiti where there is a river with various pools for swimming, or see the many handcrafts made in “fique”, a natural plant fiber that nearly all the town inhabitants work with. There is also a small ridge for afternoon soaring for those with good strong wind handling skills. You can top land or land below in open fields. Another option is to leave Barichara early enough, bypassing a stop in Curiti, to get to either the Chiflas or Panachi launch at the Canon de Chicamocha for a flight from the other side opposite the Mesa. Or we can spend only 1 night in Barichara and then 1 night in Curiti, where we are an hour closer to the Canon.
We will spend our last night back in Bucaramanga at the fly site hostal (depending on the size of the group), have dinner and enjoy a fire outside, relaxing and looking at pictures of your flights before your departure the next day.
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