Registration

Yesterday I landed at the Amanalco goal when a football game had just started. A band was playing interesting mariachi style music, and we were welcomed by loads of friendly kids. My whole team and lots of others decided to land there, because it is the smoothest, easiest landing field of the whole competition I think :)
Today we went through the long process of registration for the worlds. Licenses, insurances, certifications, gps downloads, ... all the really exciting paperwork happened this morning. It was a pleasant surprise to meet Kari Castle who will work in the organization team.
One of the FAI officials already had a mishap - he fell down some stairs and broke his leg, he is on the way to hospital in Mexico.

Nice flying and visiting the Monarcas

 After visiting the Monarch butterflies from the air the day before, we went up the mountain yesterday to see this natural wonder of bezillions of bright orange butterflies. They are about to migrate back north to Canada, because they don´t like the rainy season in Mexico, but they will come back every november to stay here over winter.
After the trip to the mariposas, we went looking for possible landing fields. Long driving, and not many fields at all found, but very important to know where the few good ones are!
Today we might fly towards the north, to Amanalco, which is the nicest goal field in this area I think.

Big thanks!!!

I just finished my preparations and will take a first test flight tomorrow. Time to send a big thanks to a lot of people around the world for all their help on our way to get here. With all our gear, it is a major logistic event to move as much as we have to, from Germany to Mexico.
My glider in the box weighs almost 40kg, and I would not have been able to shift it around on my own, let alone to put it on or take it down from the bus that picked us up - lucky that I have really strong team mates who did not hesitate a second to jump in!
Achim´s friend Brenda who lives in Valle helped us to find phone cards, she prepared a huge fruit basket as a welcome and translates for us where needed. It is great to have such a good help, I think specially our team leader is very glad that he has such an organized, friendly girl at his side to help out!
 It is certainly a privilege to be part of our German national team for me, but it is a huge effort in terms of time, money and energy for every one of us too. If there were bezillions of money in our sport like in others, we would not have to worry and just have one hang glider in every country, personal assistants, physiotherapists, chef and all. But it is not - and so we are really dependant on others to help us when we travel, which is a humbling experience. So I thought it is time to send out a big Dankeschön, thanks, gracias, obrigada, merci, spassiba, takk, grazie, teshek kür, arrigato into all directions of the world - let´s have a great comp here together and remember - it is all for the mere fun and joy of flying!

Arriving in Valle - finally!

After a lot of help from great people on the way over to the hang gliding worlds at Valle de Bravo, we finally arrived after a neverending odyssee at 1.30 pm local time in the morning, which is 8.30 am our time... the guys managed to stay up and talk a bit more, I just collapsed into bed, waking up to birds and dogs - and, most of all, sunshine this morning in beautiful Mexico!
For some reason, in Mexico city at the airport, our seven gliders had to be inspected by who knows, so we waited about two extra hours after the long flight for our luggage. In the meantime, the guys who were supposed to pick us up had gone to get some food, so it got really late when we finally left Mexico City. At least the traffic was smooth at this time of night, and I was glad that our team leader Uli drove the rental car, and we also had another driver for the bus with the gliders, so we could just sit and rest.
Now we are starting to set up the gliders and check if they made it ok. Looking good! Off to work now, more pictures later.

In Mexico City

Landing in Mexico City on Tuesday night, the smoke above the vulcano Popocatepetl was still visible!
The size of this city is always impressive - it seems to run to the horizon in all directions possible. At least there are a lot of trees, plants and parks in the city, I like it.
Only one last work trip before I fly over with the German National Team to the hang gliding worlds again on Saturday, I used the time to do some high altitude training in the gym. I never had a problem to adapt to high places, maybe also because I´m used to working at high altitude ;)

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