Antoine Girard and Martin Beaujouan-Berger have concluded their epic journey in South America. Their 1600km adventure took some unexpected turns through the Andes.
In Antoine’s words:
“The initial objective was to achieve 2700 km of bivouac flight including 1700 km of exploration.
We realized 1600km of which 700km completely new. We tried to fly and walk the rest of the 900km, but it was not possible to do it only in bivouac flight… We used the bus a lot. It’s the game of exploration, we don’t know in advance what we are going to find. In the south, a consistently stable atmosphere due to the luxuriant vegetation hindered us. Walking was almost impossible, for example we took 3 days to advance only 50km. To the north is a permanent coastal breeze between the ocean and the Altiplano which is too strong… but we managed to climb on foot and fly volcanoes like the 5672m Ubinas, near Arequipa, Peru.
On the other hand all the central part of the Cordillera flew perfectly! A wild environment in a mountainous desert. No paraglider had everdared to venture there because of the lack of civilization. The main difficulty was finding water. We had to fly with 10 liters …read more
Source:: Ozone Paragliders