![\"Bogota](\"https:\/\/blog.comeup.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/DSC_6476.jpg\")
<\/a>On our first day in the city, we visited the closeby mountain Monserate with its colonial church overlooking Bogot\u00e1. We hiked up, which was exhausting but worth the view, and took the cable car down. In the afternoon we explored the old town and had some good Peruvian food, which we haven’t had the chance to try yet. The Pisco Sour was getting straight into my head, though \ud83d\ude00 Taking it slowly, we only had one more point on our agenda on our final day: visiting the Sim\u00f3n Bol\u00edvar Parque (named by a national hero).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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<\/a>What we encountered was an unreal idyll with an unfathomable number of groups sitting on the green and enjoying themselves. There was lots of street food (but difficult to find something sin carne<\/em>), gambling stalls like on funfairs, and a lake with countless paddle boats and kayaks floating on it. On the way to the park, we also experienced Ciclov\u00eda, where every Sunday large stretches of streets in Bogot\u00e1 are blocked for cars and opened for cycling, skating, and walking. Unfortunately, we didn’t find a bike rental station. But we love the initiative!<\/p>\n\n\n\n To split travel time, we made a stop in Villa de Leyva on our way to our next destination, the Chicamocha Ca\u00f1on. It’s a colonial town and a tourist destination, for good reason. Standing on the old market plaza makes you feel like being in Spain. We only stayed one night and enjoyed ourselves with good coffee and a Tartiflette (a potato cheese dish, in this case with raclette) at a French restaurant. Yummy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The next day, we arrived at the canyon already in the dark. We very heading to a rather remote accommodation close to a paragliding takeoff. Because of that, we had to tell the bus driver where to drop us off (nothing special here). A few minutes before we reached the drop-off, I went to the front of the bus. I was observing the curvy mountain road watching out for the junction to the left followed by a restaurant on the right (which was about 20 minutes away by foot from our destination). Unfortunately, I missed the junction and the restaurant was already closed and dark. We quickly realized that we were past it but, unfortunately, there was nowhere the bus could stop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When we finally got out, Google Maps was predicting a 40-minute walk. Still doable but with our big backpacks and all the trucks and buses speeding through the serpentines in the pitch-black night, we quickly dismissed the thought. Instead, we messaged our host. The internet connection was quite bad so instead of waiting minutes for our replies, he just drove to us with his motorbike. He couldn’t carry us and our luggage back but organized a taxi and even ordered food so that we would have something for dinner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The following morning we could finally see the amazing place we have arrived at. Past the green garden of the property, the terrain fell off steeply to open up into a gigantic canyon. Down below a river was running. We even had the takeoff in sight. And that’s where we went after a simple local breakfast of scrambled eggs, arepa, sweet bread, fruits, and coffee. With the local (tandem) pilots we had been in touch already to get some basic information. One question is always where to stay best, close to takeoff or landing \u2014 in this case, we had both since it was (primarily) a top landing site. When we arrived we were warmly welcomed and received a full introduction of the site. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Together with the tandem pilots we waited until the conditions were right and did a first flight overviewing the canyon. When I intended to land another pilot was also approaching but I made room for him and did a little go-around. Luckily, I quickly gained height again and was able to land soon after. Just a few minutes later, though, the pilots still in the air struggled to get to takeoff\/landing altitude. A few even landed a little bit below the regular site to avoid losing even more altitude and having to land down in the canyon (it’s a safe option but it takes more than 1h to get back up). Everyone made it! We packed our stuff and were back at our accommodation shortly after for a relaxing afternoon on our terrace in the green.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The following two days we had a similar routine with paragliding between 11am and 2pm and resting during the afternoon when the wind got too strong. On day two Simon flew a small triangle. First, I wanted to accompany him but after losing a lot of altitude during a crossing, I decided against it. The strong but turbulent thermals helped that decision. They were far from dangerous but I quickly dislike such conditions. After I landed, I watched Simon together with a bunch of tandem pilots. <\/p>\n\n\n\n From time to time, one approached me, complimenting his flying or inquiring about his current location. They later also made me aware of the wind getting stronger and gave some tips, like not flying behind the takeoff (because you would not be able to fight back to it against the wind). They also suggested that Simon should consider returning before it gets too strong. I relayed everything to him via radio. It was cool that they were so interested and caring. After he landed safely, we did a little hike to the amusement park nearby to see what it is about and get something to eat. The balcony of the restaurant had an amazing view and we were really thirsty after flying and hiking in the blazing sun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We would have stayed longer in the canyon and, in hindsight, this would have been a good idea. But we didn’t sleep well because of the many mosquitos and our accommodation was only offering breakfast, so we mainly ate snacks for lunch (fruit, chips, muesli bars, and supermarket sweat bread) and had to order food for dinner (which was only mediocre and came in a lot of throwaway containers). There was nothing nearby and without a car, unfortunately, there weren’t a lot of good options for us. So we moved on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After Ba\u00f1os, we went to Quito again to board a plane to Bogot\u00e1, the capital of Colombia. Knowing little about it we probably expected a second Medell\u00edn, but oh boy, we were wrong. In difference to Medell\u00edn and Quito, which are tugged between mountains, Bogot\u00e1 lies on a spacious plain. This reflects itself in architecture […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1225,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[29,19,15],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.comeup.ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1208"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.comeup.ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.comeup.ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.comeup.ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.comeup.ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1208"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blog.comeup.ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1244,"href":"https:\/\/blog.comeup.ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1208\/revisions\/1244"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.comeup.ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.comeup.ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.comeup.ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.comeup.ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a>Gallery<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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