Peace of Africa

I had a pretty rough autumn, workwise and otherwise. Therefore I am delighted to find peace during these three weeks of holiday in Africa. Sun, sleep, friends and paragliding does wonders for me.

I left Sweden 1 December and flew via Dubai. Having to spend more than eight hours overnight at the airport waiting for the connecting flight to Cape Town, I took a cab downtown. Very quiet and somewhat boring, but I didn’t see much.

Cape Town is one of my favourite cities, so it was nice to be back again. Just hanged around for two days, enjoying the sun and the city while waiting for the other Swedish paraglider pilots to arrive. Sunday lunch we picked up a rental car and drove to Porterville, three-four hour drives North West of Cape Town. Here, we are nine Swedish pilots attending a one-week training camp to improve our competition flying. The second week will partake in an International paragliding competition.

Unfortunately, the weather hasn’t played ball. Arriving in sizzling 37°C heat Sunday afternoon we had a short evening flight. Monday was too windy so we went wine tasting and dining (always a pleasure) at Fairview and Nederburg.

Tuesday was flyable, just about, so we took off from Klipdas at Porterville and flew South. I landed at Saron after 29 kilometers, some of the other pilots made it into the Tulbagh valley another 15 kilometers. What a lovely feeling to be in the air again! When I landed I was greeted by a whole bunch of little kids that came running from the nearest farm. Although they probably saw paragliders before they were still big-eyed when I a descended soundlessy from the sky only to fold up my flying machine into a neat backpack and walk away. What a wondrous sport this is.

Wednesdat was cold and windy so we drove towards Stellenbosch and had lunch at tasty 96 Winery Road. The wines at Waterford and Dornier were disappointing but Stellenzicht was a very positive surprise with an agreeable Chardonnay and some lovely Shiraz.

Yesterday I woke up early and took a refreshing walk out on the countryside. It is such a beautiful landscape here. Peaceful. Said hello to two kids on a bike and a few pigs along the road.