Encounters during holidays

Frequently, when on holidays, you don't meet anyone, just grockeling around, sometimes talking to waiters, hotel personnel etc.

But I happen to be a camper whenever possible and the activity of paragliding makes it easier, too, to engage a conversation with strangers.



After grockeling around for a weekend in Pau (on video till 1.30) and deprived of sleep in the local camp side by a bunch of night-boozers and dedicated beer-singers we moved to Accous for more peaceful surroundings, the splendor of the mountains and for flying.

First encounter:Jean-Luc in his camping car. He was squatting near the glider landing patch, looking longingly at the sky. "Not today, he said to me, ceiling far too low". In the evening, after dinner, we had our first pow wow, no camp fire but a glass of Porto.

He had become a paraglider addict. Nothing else counted any more. He bought this camping car, kind of live-in truck and took a three-months-leave to travel from one flying site to another. He regretted his girl friend, met two months before, but that's life, he explained to us. Before hitting the Pyrenees, he had been to Greece, Spain, Morocco, Portugal. His son from an earlier marriage, living nearby, came to visit him for the week-end. "Papa has gone crazy", he told me. "What about visiting the Lescun mountain circus" (see also video, from 5.07 to 5.50), I suggested one day. "There is certainly no flying today". "No, no, thank you, he said, "the weather might turn at noon and then I am ready".

Second encounter: Pierre, the hard of hearing. He had booked a 5-day-session at the local flying school for about 450 € (about 500 US$) and camped right next to us. They start the real flying right on the second day but he didn't dare. On the third day he had a tandem flight but still was unable to do it alone. Did the instructor talk too fast? I don't know, I wasn't there.

I told him that to be afraid is normal. "Each time I decide to leave for a flight somewhere, I have to go to the toilet, every time. And this though I have now about 500 flights under the belt". He was afraid and I understand him. Each pupil carries a walkie talkie attached to his harness but Pierre did not fully understand the messages and probably only half of what the instructors told him. Who would dare to launch himself under these conditions?

Third encounter: Mister X, the smoker-boozer: He arrived during the bad weather period and was obliged to set up his tent when it was raining cats and dogs. We felt sorry for him. Next day he told us inside everything was dry. The first day he just sat inside his open tent on a low chair smoking cigars as thick as my middle finger and coughing from time to time. Late afternoon I met him again in the nearby little supermarket where he bought a bottle of rosé wine. When I came back to our tent he was already sitting on his chair, smoking, coughing, his bottle next to him.

Second day: no movement to report. Whenever we came back he was sitting there, steadfast.

Third day: no movement to report. Just smoking, coughing but the wine looked like red one.

Forth day: no movement to report. Just smoking, coughing but the bottle seemed to contain something else.

Fifth day: same as before. I was a bit uneasy having never met someone like that. We exchanged polite greetings plus some small talk remarks about the weather. In the late afternoon I took the shuttle that ferries the pilots to the paraglider launching pad (at 1.47 till 1.52 in my video). And who was standing there, red in the face and smoking a cigar: Mister X! I proposed him to take the shuttle down but he declined. Walking up there takes you about 3 hours and a little less to get you down.

But he had not finished to astonish us: one day in the late afternoon we suddenly heard a very loud, lousy gangsta rap coming from a house near the camp site. There was a bunch of teenagers sitting on the terrace and having a good time. After an hour or so it stopped. Next day, same time, same "melody". But as I walked past the car of Mister X I suddenly realized that he and not those youngsters had the rap stuff coming out of his car radio!

Fourth encounter: superman. We met him first while walking from the campsite to the village. A bus stopped at the main road, he got out carrying his huge paraglider on his back, a backpack in front and trailing a luggage caddy. Next day I met him in the shuttle going to the launching pad. There was no wind, so we all had to run as fast as possible to take off. He was the only one who managed to stay in the air. It was amazing. This guy was the best pilot I have ever met. One of the next days we were sitting at the launching pad, waiting for some wind coming out of the right direction. When you sit on the ground, your trouser pants come up a bit. This guy had only one leg and was wearing a prosthesis!

Another day, Luis the superman was sitting next to me in the shuttle. "Let's relax a bit" he said, took his wooden leg off and swallowed some pills. Pain killers I imagine.

Then came a five day stretch with very bad weather. Not the slightest chance to fly and thus we moved around to visit places. Luis told me his intention to leave for the Atlantic coast, flying at the Pyla dune. But when the weather cleared up, he was there, waiting for the shuttle. He did not leave at all but had remained inside his bed and breakfast house, all holed up, becoming invisible to the outside world. He had no car and could thus go nowhere.

Where did he loose his leg? He was vague about this "it was an accident" but living in Tel Aviv/Israel I can imagine what kind of accident that was.

PS: The last post had 185 visitors. Not bad for a shithole!

Back from holidays

So here I am at home again. Back from camping in Samoëns, a little village-town south of the Geneva lake and 2 hours' drive to the Mont Blanc, highest mountain in Europe. A splendid little bourgeois holiday, just as I like it (or nearly so).





N° 1 and 2 = Those are the tourists - called "grockels" in English English - standing in front of the Geneva Lake. On the other side is Switzerland. As you see, not all French are slim and those people are certainly not Dutch.


N° 3 = Here you see the Mont Blanc, from a distance. I made that photo with a zoom at its maximum. Mister Big dwarfs everything around.

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Coming to the camp site I was amazed to see for the first time in more than 20 years a sizeable number of tents. Till now, those campers were mostly people driving motorhomes (kind of live-in lorries) of various sizes and a slowly shrinking number of caravans. I suppose motorhomes simply were more fashionable. And lastly, in a corner, there were some tents.

This time big change: about half of the spots were occupied by tent campers. Some of those tents were real holiday cathedrals, never seen such big ones before. Stupidly I did not make any photos, it just did not occur to me.

The reason of this change is certainly the amazing price of gas and Diesel. Maybe in ten years' time I'll arrive on my holiday spot in a high-speed rickshaw, like in Vietnam. That might help us save gas and money.

And who is going to pull those rickshaws. Certainly not me but what about hiring some prisoners? All those murderers, thieves, crooks, dopers, dealers, rapists are idling in their cells. You cannot make them look at the telly for more than ten hours. That would be inhuman. Furthermore, it seems, here in France, the prisons are overflowing, they are now being put inside in layers, like sardines. So some rickshaw exercise would do them a world of good, add color to their pale indoor cheeks and lessen the burden of the unhappy impoverished taxpayer.

Well, so much for some social engineering of my invention.

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But we went to the Alps for a little change of surroundings and furthermore, Samoëns is famous for its paragliding flying possibilities. Have a look

N° 4 = That is Plateau de Saix (yes, unpronouncable for nearly everybody). All those people are preparing for take-off. When you are in the air, you have about 800 m (about 2500 feet) of air below you. After soaring a bit above the launching pad Mount Blanc is clearly visible.

A fellow pilot told me that two years ago a guy was able not only to go there by paraglider but even land on its summit of 4800 m (about 14500 feet). And when he stood on our number 1 mountain he was all alone because Mt. Blanc was closed for climbers that day. A heat wave made the snow cap and glaciers unsafe and avalanche prone. So he just stood there for some time, Italy behind him, France in front and then flew away, happy.

Samoëns has not only two splendid launching pads but also a king-size landing spot. It has the size of about two football fields. Touching ground there gives me the feeling to land on Frankfurt International. No danger to hit a church tower, a car park, a lamp post or just a big tree towering in front of you.

N° 5 = The landing area though you see here only a small portion of it.


N° 6 = A better view of the landing area. Pure bliss.

Three days before the end of our holidays I had another start on top of Mr. Saix, see first picture. As there was no wind, I was running at top speed to get the paraglider taking off.

While running I fell into something like a rabbit hole and had my feet torn a bit. In the air I thought "that was a near miss" and when touching ground it hurt a bit. But next morning, I could not move my foot, it hurt like hell. The worst was going up and down the stairs to the lavatory. The night after I was even pissing in a plastic bottle to avoid climbing those stairs.

My wife told me about an old grandmother's remedy fighting inflammation. Just take good olive oil and add some drops of lemon and mix the stuff. It works, ladies and gentlemen. Really, it works! The third day I was already climbing those stairs up and down, bye bye piss bottle. Born again for further action.

Here, some more photos:


N° 7 = Mountain bike girl. T5his activity seems to be more risky than paragliding. Good to know.










N° 7, 8, 9, 10 = Have some more. Could not resist showing them.