Paragliding at Cordoba, Argentina

December 27, 2009 – 8:36 pm

“Run!” my paragliding tandem partner yelled. So I ran — toward the edge of a cliff in central Argentina.

“Run faster, or you’ll. . . . ” an onlooker shouted, unable to finish that dreadful sentence. I sprinted harder, my partner harnessed to me from behind, following me. The cliff’s edge raced closer, 20 feet, now 10. Our fabric wing fluttered and rose above us. Five feet. I closed my eyes.

Suddenly, there was no ground beneath my feet. My legs sliced air. We sailed forward, upward. Unlike parachutes, built to descend, paragliders are designed to ascend. I smiled. I was flying. We caught a thermal and spiraled blissfully into the heavens on the trail of an Andean condor.

But then I looked down.

Something was terribly wrong. I’m Homo sapiens, after all, a terrestrial biped to my last DNA strand. A powerful instinct in me reasoned: Bill, you’re no condor. So what are you doing 6,500 feet in the air, latched to a flimsy kite? See that down there? That’s an Argentine vineyard. You’re supposed to be sipping torrontés there like a regular tourist, not crashing into the fermenting buckets. You should . . . Oh my God, what was that?

Wing deflation. Our safety depended upon air surging into the wing’s fabric tubes.

But we’d hit turbulence and were now lurching dangerously toward a rock outcrop. Would wing deflation lead to wing collapse? Why, for heaven’s sake, had I come to La Cumbre?

* * *

I came to La Cumbre because of Hernán Pitocco, the world’s top acrobatic paraglider.

I first heard about Pitocco while enjoying pinot noir, tango and asado in Buenos Aires. Paragliding was the furthest thing from my mind. But then I saw a YouTube video called “Infinity Tumbling by Hernán Pitocco.”

In it, the 31-year-old blue-eyed Argentine loops through the sky over his own paraglider again and again, tumbling — it seems — infinitely. A guy who invents new moves for the sport, Pitocco achieved a childhood fantasy I’d almost forgotten: flying so high on a swing that I’d loop all the way around the top of the swing set.

It turned out that Buenos Aires-bred Pitocco now lives 10 hours to the north, in the isolated mountain village of La Cumbre, near Cordoba. La Cumbre is one of the hemisphere’s best places to paraglide because of its marvelous winds and launch cliffs. Pitocco moved to La Cumbre a decade back to train in paragliding. He wanted to be the best. Others with similar ambitions had moved there, too, and informal paragliding schools sprang up. Today, anybody can go there to tandem paraglide. And for just $60.

Cheapness, of course, should not be the top consideration when it comes to flinging one’s body off a cliff. Still, the New Yorker in me loves a bargain, and maybe I’d even fulfill that long-suppressed swing-set dream. So I checked out of my Palermo hotel and hopped a luxury overnight bus to La Cumbre. I awoke as the bus took a sharp mountain curve and saw the sun rising over a vast, dry landscape. Once in La Cumbre, I beelined it to the paragliding school where Pitocco sometimes teaches.

I’d heard that Pitocco was unfortunately away in France competing, but I’d seen a video of one of his colleagues, a bearded fellow, and he was impressive. However, although I specifically requested the bearded guy, I did not get him when partners were assigned. Somebody else (there were three of us going up) got the bearded expert.

Meanwhile, my guy looked like a Colorado ski bum, one of those irkingly lean and handsome — and perpetually stoned — dudes who shouts “Gnar-gnar powpow bro-bra!” (don’t ask) before recklessly launching into unskiable drops.

I complained, in Spanish, insisting that I was, well, a little nervous about this, that I’d never skydived, rock-climbed, never even picked up a copy of Outside magazine. Couldn’t they, pretty please, assign me the bearded professional?

After an awkward silence, someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around. He whispered, pointing to my ski bum: “That’s Hernán Pitocco.”

Though his hair was overgrown and his clothes fashionably tattered, this was indeed the world’s top paraglider, the Infinity Tumbler in the flesh. I began to apologize, but Hernán was already saying, “No pasa nada, che,” with a charming smile, and, to calm me down, he took me aside. “Paragliding equipment almost never fails,” he said, indicating 30 lines connected to risers, each of which could support a person’s full weight.

Indeed, as designs improve, the sport has become increasingly safe, as well as popular. As of 2004, France had the most paragliding pilots at 25,000, followed by Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Japan and Korea with 15,000 each. (The United States has about 4,500 pilots.) Many double as tandem partners, allowing countless neophytes like me to try paragliding each year.

But the sport is still young. In 1954, Walter Neumark wrote in Flight magazine that a person could someday “launch himself by running over the edge of a cliff.” In the early 1960s, David Barish developed the “sail wing” to recover NASA space capsules, testing them on Hunter Mountain in New York, and went on to popularize “slope soaring” at ski resorts during the summer season. The current term for the sport was not officially coined until 1985 by Patrick Gilligan and Betrand Dubuis in their book “The Paragliding Manual.” The first paragliding world championship took place in Austria in 1989.

The pickup loaded with gear, I jumped in the back, ready for my virgin soar. But Hernán came over and pointed skyward. “Atmospheric instability,” he said. We could not fly. Cumulonimbus clouds threatened to the south, and rain can destabilize the fabric wing.

As a consolation, Hernán took me to a steak lunch, where I learned more about him. He comes from a family of sportsmen, including an 80-year-old grandfather who continues to compete in motor racing. Hernán competes in “acro,” the aero-acrobatic stunt flying that includes wing-overs, syncro spirals and “helicopters.” Through corporate sponsorship, he receives an annual salary of 36,000 euros (about $52,000) — okay, so it isn’t the NBA — to travel the globe competing.

“Guess it must hurt your personal life,” I said, shamelessly prying, “to be on the road all the time.”

“My girlfriend understands,” he said. “She’s a sponsored heli skier from Norway.”

Then Hernán looked a little sad. Finally he said: “My only goal in life was to be the best paraglider in the world . . . .”

“And now you are.”

He nodded. “So I honestly feel empty. I don’t know what to do next.”

I knew what to do next. I took a long gaucho siesta. The next morning it was still too overcast to fly. That’s when Argentine Affliction struck.

Argentine Affliction symptoms: loss of ambition, consistent Winnie the Pooh-like contentedness, the propensity to greet each passerby with a sincere smile and an “¡Hola!” La Cumbre is one of those lightly globalized anti-McWorlds that’s a satisfying little world unto itself. I stoked the fire at my guesthouse in the evening, drinking yerba maté out of a gourd with Pablo, the owner. By day, I lazed in cafes telling jokes with the locals, watching the light rain fall, reading a novel.

By the third day of “atmospheric instability,” my Argentine Affliction was so severe that I’d forgotten I’d come to paraglide. But then, while ambling along the town’s sleepy main street, I saw something in the now-clearing skies: a fleck of bright red.

Somebody was paragliding toward the village. I jogged toward the magnificent sight of a retired British firefighter — he’d tell me later that he and his wife paraglide a new destination in the world each year — landing with a whoop on the street. “Which way to the cabernet?” he asked me.

The sight of him cured me instantly. I tracked down Hernán. With a childlike grin he said, “Let’s fly.”

* * *

My airborne worries proved needlessly alarmist. After our wing deflated, Hernán lithely maneuvered into a thermal. We soared upward, back toward the condors.

I extended my arms, imitating the birds, my anxiety melting into awe. Hernán explained that when the sun heats the ground, some features (such as rock faces) warm more than others, and this sets off rising thermals. I heard a beep from behind me. Hernán’s vario-altimeter signaled that he’d “cored in” to the strongest part of the thermal, where the air rose the fastest.

Indeed, a paraglider is considered an aircraft — “unpowered” aircraft, that is. Therefore, pilots such as Hernán must master meteorological forecasting, aeronautical theory and national aviation regulations.

But I preferred the poetry of it to the science.

“Hernán has feathers,” one of his colleagues had told me, and I understood why when we began ridge soaring.

This wasn’t any ridge soar. Hernán flew the length of a ridge — cutting it treacherously close — with precision, right into a new thermal. “Want to do parabolas?” he asked. I gulped, and agreed.

No, it wasn’t infinity tumbling. But it did satisfy my childhood longing. We swung back and forth, carving ovals in silent air. We finally approached the condor. For a sublime moment, I peered into his prehistoric-looking eyes. Hernán was quiet, too, and I sensed that, in that moment at least, it wasn’t about being the champion. What are titles and trophies compared with the euphoria of escaping gravity, soaring with the birds?

And then it was over. Hernán dove left and flared the wing. We landed, running hard again, atop the cliff where we’d begun.

Where to go, what to do in La Cumbre, Argentina

- GETTING THERE

Copa offers one-stop service from Washington Dulles to Buenos Aires for $864. United offers nonstop service starting at around $1,500. From Buenos Aires, it’s a 10-hour bus ride to Cordoba and La Cumbre, or an hour-long flight to Cordoba for $205 through Aerolineas Argentinas. From Cordoba, you’ll need to rent a car or catch a bus to La Cumbre.

- WHERE TO STAY

El Condor, Bartolome Jaime 204, 011-54-3548-452870 011-54-3548-452870 . This 1938 English-style home has a cozy atmosphere, a friendly owner, lots of antique furniture and a great price — $12 a night.

Hosteria Plaza, Cuesta 538, 011-54-3548-451252 011-54-3548-451252 , http://www.hosteriaplaza.com. Named for the downtown plaza it overlooks, this hotel has rooms that are spacious but homey, starting at around $40 a night.

- WHERE TO EAT

Casa Caraffa, Corner of Caraffa & Rivadavia, 011-54-3548-452852 011-54-3548-452852 .

Get your mandatory helping of Argentine beef before you leave cattle country; try the “bife de chorizo” (sirloin steak) with Roquefort sauce for $6.

Kasbah

Sarmiento 6, Cordoba, 011-54-3548-1540-1926. Spicy cocina etnica (“ethnic food”) at a reasonable price. A great place to catch the pulse of downtown Cordoba.

- WHAT TO DO

Aeroclub La Cumbre, Ruta 38/Km. 67 Aerodromo de La Cumbre, 011-54-3548-452544 011-54-3548-452544 , ttp://www.redbullaerobatix.com. The organization Hernán Pitocco works for.

Taller de las Nubes, 011-54-15-570951 011-54-15-570951 , tallerdelasnubes@hotmail.com.Take half-hour tandem flight lessons with Pablo Jaraba, a.k.a. “El Turco,” for $60, or a full course, including in-class instruction, practice and a series of solo flights, for $900. (Similar at Aeroclub La Cumbre, above.)

Cordoba. About 58 miles southeast of La Cumbre is Argentina’s second-largest city, Cordoba. At 436 years, it’s one of the oldest Spanish colonial capitals in the region. Its rich history is on display in many monuments, such as the Arch of Cordoba, “the Jesuit Block” (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) and the historical museum of the Universidad Nacional de Cordoba.
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SOURCES:

“Paragliding at La Cumbre, Argentina”
By William Powers
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, December 27, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/24/AR2009122401972.html

“Where to go, what to do in La Cumbre, Argentina”
Sunday, December 27, 2009
The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/24/AR2009122401973.html