Paragliding in El Bolsón

The boundless beauty of El Bolsón persuaded me enough so as to dare to appreciate it from the air. I was convinced that a paragliding experience would satisfy my thirst for getting to know the deepest nooks in the “parallel 42 degree Andean shire”.

Some time ago, I had read a phrase by Leonardo Da Vinci: “Once you have experienced flying, you will walk on the ground with your sight up to the sky, because you have already been there and you want to go back.” This imperative premise and the yearning to fulfill my desire made me contact Ricardo Miloro, who has been practising this activity for years.

What encouraged me most was to listen to the people who had undergone that experience. “It is like being suspended in the air”–I had heard once. “An unbeatable feeling of peace and freedom” –said others.

The truth is that at 2.30pm I was ready to make that ancestral dream of flying like a bird come true. The stage, no less than the Piltriquitrón Mount (2,260 mosl), a whole mass of concrete rock that highlights the vivacious image of El Bolsón.

As we were climbing to the take-off pampa, located 1,150 meters over sea level, Ricardo –a professional in the field– was in charge of reducing my anxiety. I learnt that Piltriquitrón in the mapuche language means “mount hanging from the clouds”; nothing else was more suitable for that mass that, silently, was letting me conquer it.

Ricardo Miloro has been practising this activity, considered adventure travel by many people, for eleven years and doing two-seater glides for seven years. As he knows other latitudes where paragliding is practised, such as Córdoba, Mendoza, Tucumán or La Rioja, he asserts that “the best place to paraglide is El Bolsón”.

“Hot air currents in this area are abundant, especially after midday, and the almost constant winds of the same quadrant make flying easy –as if by heart”–, assures the intrepid paraglider.


The Final Countdown

On the “pampita” we spread the equipment: the official sail, a “seat” where the passenger sits once in the air, the helmets, and the overall that would protect our clothes at the moment of landing.

Once everything was settled, I did as the instructor told me in order to have a successful take-off.

As we were waiting for a favorable breeze to raise us into the air, I watched the Andean shire from that height. It is attractive to see how such a perspective turns the site into a simple, eternally slow and silent place.

Slicing through inspiration, the Patagonian wind did his stuff, and at Ricardo’s command, I started to run to spread out the sail and thus gain height.

¡S-p-e-c-t-a-c-u-l-a-r! Sooner than I had expected, I was flying. Ricardo arranged the seat for me to sit down and start to enjoy the vertiginous sight.

After several turns, taking ascendant currents, we almost reached the two thousand meters, where, I could appreciate lakes Puelo, Epuyen, and the Tronador, Lindo and Perito Moreno Mounts, as well as the stunning Andean mountain range in the background.

Underneath, all the splendor of El Bolsón seemed to shed a special brightness. The rhythm of the anachronistic vehicles that went along the shire streets made them look like collection miniatures pushed around by an invisible giant.

Farther on I observed the intense green of El Hoyo, the Buenos Aires Chico neighborhood, and the millenary poplars of the Lago Puelo area .

The perspective was unique, everything was beholding. You only have to dare to live it, to feel it, to be the protagonist.

Ricardo led me along and across the endless valley. A light breeze stroked our temples and, accomplices, we smiled for the pleasure given by being suspended in the air.

After twenty minutes of gliding, during which I took some photographs with my digital camera, we started to go down.

We began to lose height gradually. The city noise started to invade the atmosphere and, almost without noticing it, we were on solid ground.

When the flight was over, I was feeling totally enraptured. The joy of the moment was transmitted by my face. I confirmed that gliding is a confluence of sensations: peace, freedom, vertigo, and adrenaline are only some of them. Others, surely linked to the soul, are hard to be put into words.