Saturday night 3rd of september I found myself in a por puesto(shared taxi) on my way to the coastal boardercrossing between colombia and venezuela, with a driver that stopped every halfhour to buy more beer. I was almost falling a sleep to the tunes of Venezuelan latina music sounding through the old speakers behind my head, thinking back at the last 4 weeks of my travelling, and about a journey like this is formed by the coincidents of everyday life. The time in Mèrida had been something so different from what I had been looking forward to when I left Eirik and Enrique behind in Caracas that sunday evening 4 weeks ago. This is what happened:
I arrived one early morning and went shopping around the different tour agencies to see what I could to up there in the venezuelan andes mountains. After a whole day of thinking I landed on the unlikely choice: Stay around Mèrida for some time and take a course in paragliding. So that tuesday I had my first trip out to the traininghill where my instructor Piti tought me how to kite the paraglider.

My training hill

The next 4 days was spent up on that hill, everyday going up a little higher for flights of about 15-45 seconds. Some days was spent waiting for better weather, because without the right wind direction or with rain, we couldn´t fly. Those days made me crazy, but it was all a part of the course of paragliding I guess. Some days you just are waiting the whole day for the right conditions. After about a week in Mèrida I got my first flight from Tierra Negra, at a height of 1000m. Having done a tandem in Turkey a year ago, I kind of knew what I was going into. I took off, sailed downwards, approached the landingarea and survived! A landingarea full of powerlines is not the most pleasant sight for a beginner some couple of hundred meters above: "Am I going to land there???" Luckily for the first 3 flights I was instructed through radio, with an instructor on the landing area guiding me down the approach. Easy enough actually.

Taking off from Tierra Negra

My second weekend in Mèrida was spent at a camp by a lake some 5 hours from the city. The paragliders down at the flying site invited me to go with them to a SIV course, practicing emergency situations in the air over water, with rescueboats ready to take care of those lucky enough to crash in the water. I thought "what the hell why not" and I joined in. Saturday was spent waiting for better weather, which never came.. Sunday though was beautiful, but for my level the wind was to tough. Enjoyed the day looking at the more experienced pilots doing their manouvers, acrobatics and emergency recoveries. In the afternoon I finally got to fly, just to find out that the wind was too weak, and I could gain any altitud so I just flew down and landed close to the others. Walked the whole way up again to the take off area hoping that the wind would get better. And it did. As I got there, I took off again and quickly gained several hundred meters of altitude, flying close to the steep mountain wall to take advantage of the soaring winds going up along it. Got instructions to fly over the water, and after practicing some manouvers my instructor told me to throw the emergency parachute. I threw it at some 300 meters of altitude and quickly began struggling getting the paraglider to stop flying. Very bad to land with both parachute and paraglider open because the glider was actually pulling me downwards giving me a too rapid descent. Used all my force and pulled the paraglider to my body, stopping it from flying. Hit the water quite hard, like from a 5 meter jump in a pool and the rescueboat was there right away to get me out of the water. A great experience. It was all part of the course, and at the same time a lot of fun and adrenaline. The weekend had been amazing, even though I hadn´t been flying as much as I wanted. After arriving in Mèrida again, the pilots asked me to come live with them doing at the flying site, so my last week in Venezuela I spent with a family of paragliding pilots, and we flew almost every day, every time learning more stuff. They showed me fantastic south american hospitality and I got to stay with them, fly with their equipment and everything, free of charge! When I left I felt like a part of the family, and we already have made plans of a roadtrip through southamerica in 10 years, paragliding everywhere. Few things I look forward to more than that.

The family of pilots

But I had to get going. Having tried to get longride bus tickets to colombia on friday, failing because of the high season and completely sold out buses, I decided on saturday morning to just do it by small microbuses. So started of with a 2 hours busride to El vigia. Then 8 hours to Maracaibo, where I got in a por puesto heading for the colombian boarder. It was getting dark and going like this with shared taxis, arriving a bad place of colombia in the night was something I really didn´t like, but nevertheless I was determined to get to colombia as fast as possible.
BOOM!
I woke up from my dreamy state in the taxi in terror after we had crashed into the side of an oncoming truck. Too close for comfort! Luckily nothing happened to us, but the car got a bump in the front and a mirror blown off. Our driver didn´t stop, just kept on going to the boarder. The small truck had turned around and caught up with us right there on the boarder. A fierce argue started and people was shouting and screaming at each other, all blaming the other part. For me it was clearly out driver who was to blame, caused by the 10-15 beers he had been drinking on the way from Maracaibo. I got out of the car and kept distance, and got my passport stamped. The fighting kept on going for a solid halfhour, so I walked over to the colombian side and got my entry stamp for colombia. Also sold a note of 100 norwegian kroners to the boarder oficial, who was collecting moneybills from all over the world. He was very happy, and showed his norwegian money to his colleagues. Not hostile at all at this boarder, the police and army just smiled and shook their heads to the arguing that was taking place between the two cars. Happy was I that we had reached our destination of Maicao, 10 minutes from the colombia boarder. Note to self: Don´t ride with drunk taxidrivers. My plan was to take another taxi to the city of santa marta, Maicao being a dirty dangerous city. But being shooked up by the incident on the boarder I did what my parents would want me to do and got a hotelroom for the night. I was happy to be in Colombia, a new country with new crazy experiences out there just waiting for the right coincident that makes them happen.

I will never forget my time in Mèrida, it´s a city to love and with a great vibe. My friends down at Gonzales (the flying site) I really hope to see again one day. I´m determined to go back there to fly more, being a bird over the beautiful andes valleys.