Sunday.
Got a ride up with local hanggliding pilot Antonio and friends. First the usual stop for bocadillo and gazpacho, checking out the southern take off at El Torno. But too cross, and with the sun gaining, the wind would veer more to the west, so up to the higher take off.
Once there, it looked fantastic. Take off in moonish landscape, overlooking a big wide valley with huge opportunities for landing. Clouds at more than 2500 meter, was promising.
But no paraglider. I thought I was gonna meet a paraglider pilot up here, bot none .... .
The two hanggliding pilots were rigging. Still not too much wind at take off, but waited till they took off and checked out the air.
I know I had to go in the air with them, experience hanggliding pilots for over 20 years. Once in a while a gust came through, but as well from behind as from left, right and in front.
The first hangglider almost bummed out untill he minutes later when he was spotted high up just under the clouds, mentioning 2700 m height.
Second hanggliding pilot waited for over half hour to take off, hangy-waiting, don't know how they called it.
It was scorching hot, and all the shade on the bare top of the mountain was all used by the pilots' family under his hangglider.
Got gear all set, but was still not certain I was gonna take off at three pm, in Extremadura, temperatures above 30 degrees and most probably heavy conditions in the air.
On radio I heard that thermals were getting stronger and already averaging at 6 m/s. Heard the hangglider pilots screaming through their radio's, 2500, 2600 , 2750 m and so on.
Didn't feel comfortable, don't know the site, what to do.
Pilots friends wanted to leave, get down in the valley and find some shade. So you know the story, these central hours on this site, not knowing the site, made me decide to go down with them. Frustrated. Could have been good, but could have been way too strong.
Haven't talked to the hangglider pilots yet, but talked to some locals. And they said mostly they see paragliders late in the aftenoon at 6, -7 pm.
Its looks like I am not having a lot of luck, to get the glider out. One thing is the very difficult access to the sites, but also no local pilots around.
OK, we can soar in the evenings on lower hills, but mainly we want to thermal on their huge sites. Mañana, or maybe no mañana even. Called this morning and their is only activity on weekends, during the week, no pilots. No drive up.
Frustrating.