Pakistan revisited: Blog entry two

Things are starting to move! Although we are still stuck in Islamabad, our tribe has multiplied itself to four pilots now. Glenn Stevens and Grey Hamilton did arrive on the 13^th, Glenn by plane from Europe and Grey by bus and taxi from Delhi. Today there actually is a chance that we go flying on a local site.

It is now evening and we did actually fly today. Sajjad, the president of the PAFF, picked us up from our hotel with his four wheel drive and took us to a flying site about 50km from Rawalpindi. It was a relief to get out of town and see something else than concrete and cars. We slalomed our way through heavy traffic on the motorway and once on the smaller roads our eyes feasted on the greenery in the fields. Even if we would not have flown would it have been worth it, just to get out of town. As it happened it was flyable. We left our car at the landing field and out of nowhere materialized a Jeep to take us up the hill. I must have missed something when we stopped for a drink on the way and Sajjad must have organized the Jeep. A twenty minute drive on a rough track took us to the top of a ridge where the Paff has cleared a block of shrub to create a launch area. Again, out of nowhere, materialized some locals with tarpaulins to cover the rocks and protect our gliders and lines from snagging. We were maybe seven hundred meters above the valley floor and looked out over a half empty manmade lake. The chain of hills we stood on runs roughly NW-SE and disappeared into to misty air in the distance. The thermals were coming up the slope with regular intervals and I was soon ready to launch. We all had a nice flight with some decent height gain; it was nice to float around above 2000 meters altitude to enjoy the cool air. I attempted a little cross country flight but after flying across a wide valley I didn’t connect with the thermals on the other side and ended up landing two km short of the designated landing area. As is the rule in Pakistan, within minutes of landing there was a crowd standing around me with no’ one speaking English. The people are so nice here, even though we don’t speak the same language they insisted on carrying my gear out of the field and invite me into a house for a cup of tea. I wanted to stay on the road to catch a ride back to the landing area so they produced a seat for me to sit on in the shade of a tree and a thermos with sweet milk tea. Then someone with a good level of English turned up and things got organized. I could have easily walked back myself but they wanted to carry my stuff and so escorted me back to the landing zone. Everybody else had landed by that time and soon we were on our way back to Rawalpindi. Only when Sajjad mentioned food did I realize how hungry I was. Sajjad rang ahead and ordered his staff to prepare rice, curry and dhal and to cut up a watermelon and put it in the fridge. And so a good day became a great day, with a big meal dished up outside on the lawn in the shade of the mulberry tree. Pakistan Bring it on!!! PS some photos will follow.PSPS link to tracklog of the little flighthttp://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/tracks/world/alltimes/