Well, hello there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Cloudbase Mayhem. Summer has fully arrived. Some big flights going down over in Europe and here in the States, and I'm sure other parts of the world. Haven't been in the game too much with this house build going on, but getting excited to go to Chelan in a few days for U.S. Nationals. And that's about the only housekeeping I've got this week before we get into the show or some event stuff. stuff. The X-Peers coming up, always exciting. And then the Dolomites and a bunch of others over in the Alps. So have to keep our eyes on that. The X-Lakes challenge up in Scotland is taking place. I think it's Scotland. Yeah, X-Lakes is in Scotland. I'm a jockey's neck of the woods.
That's taking place this weekend. So some exciting things going down. Super excited to watch the X-Pyr this year and see what happens there. Some big names in in that one. And the X Red Rocks is now totally overbooked. That's been pretty exciting to get all that put together. So that's scheduled for the end of September. We've got Aaron Durogati and Paul Gushelmauer and Tom DeDorladeau, Tanguy Renaud-Goud and Patrick Von Cannell, a bunch of legends from the X-Alps and other places coming. So, that should be a lot of fun to have all that talent on this side of the pond showing us how it's done. And, uh, the Red Rocks Wide Open is the, uh, another US Nationals event and pre-PWC, which Logan and I are running, and that is, uh, filled up real quick, right?
From the beginning, we've still got a few spots we're keeping open for foreign pilots, so keep an eye on that one as well. That's September 10th to the 17th. It should be a lot of fun to go racing in such spectacular country. So fun things happening in the future. Hope you're getting some. This talk I did quite a few months back. I'm still digging through some of the episodes I recorded this winter as I was getting ready for this house building. I wouldn't be able to record nearly as much, which has been true, but is with Leandro Estevam Montoya. I hope I'm saying his name correctly, But Leandro and I had a great talk about Vivi flying down in Brazil. That's not something you know hear about the records all the time, and all the great comp flying they've got in Brazil.
Brazil's obviously got tons of great flying, lots of amazing pilots, but I hadn't heard too much about Vivi. So Leandro reached out to me and shared with me his website, which is in Portuguese, which I don't speak, so I didn't—I couldn't find too much there that I could understand. But it was clear that there's a whole group of folks down there getting after it with bibi, so we had a really cool chat about just bibi flying in Brazil, the possibilities, what's been tackled, what's left down there, which is tons, and just shared a lot. He shared a lot of information about how they do it, gear, and how it goes down brazil and he's got a really cool website site, hike and fly.com.br with tons of information.
And that's what they're all about is just sharing it all, trying to get more people to come down to Brazil and have cool adventures. So that's what this talk's all about. Having adventures. Hope you enjoy. I hope you're having a great summer. Cheers.
Leandro, it's good to see your smiling face. I was, I'm excited to have this talk with you because we don't do enough talks with Brazilians. So thanks for reaching out and And thanks for telling me about all the hike and fly and bivy stuff you're doing down there. You know, everybody here is Brazil. They haven't been there and knows about the Sertão and all the records that have happened there over the decades. But we don't know too much about hike and fly. So I'm excited to have this chat with you.
Amazing. Amazing to be part of your show. We follow you in networks and also the show. We heard the show from Samuka and Saladini and other Brazilian pilots. We are excited to see as well the participation on X-Alps. So it's a pleasure to be here and share a little bit about the hike and fly in Brazil.
Yeah. So tell me, where are you and where is the hike and fly going down? Brazil is, like the U.S., a huge country. I know you've got tons of fantastic flying sites. The World Cup is going to be happening in Baixu here in a few days. and a place that looks just amazing, but I've only flown the Sertau. So where are you and orient people to the type of flying that happens where you are?
Today, I'm based in Atibaia. It's near Sao Paulo, around one hour from Sao Paulo. Sao Paulo, you know, it's a big center in Brazil. It's not Buenos Aires, it's Sao Paulo.
And here in Atibaia, we built, not only me, I'm trying to be here as someone talking by a team. We have a team doing this kind of hike and fly in Brazil. It's not all about me, for sure. And Dubai has a small pole, a small place where there is a school, a paragliding school that's becoming specialized on hike and fly. So the professor, he's also training the students, the the students the new learning paragliding guys to buy hiking fly stuff we have a nice place here to hike a mountain about one hour hiking to have a really nice takeoff a good local flight zone
and so it's nice, so what's by is one of the important place for hiking fly in Brazil, but for sure it's not the build built as one; it's not the most beautiful one. We can do hiking fly near Sao Paulo, in Espirito Santo, in Baixo Guandu. We just have been there, we just was there a few weeks ago, amazing place to do hike and fly and bivouac trips. The point we are trying to show is the scenario of hike and fly began in Brazil around 2014, 2012, some guys was doing that in 2008, but in the country the paragliding sport developed together with the hang gliding, so everyone Everyone was flying from conventional takeoffs, those ones when reached by the car.
So we had a lot of mountains, really nice place, around 2,400 meters. We don't have really high mountains, but amazing place from our country, without being explored by paragliding. And this new generation, around 2008, 2012, 2013, began to explore those mountains. And I was part of this team, let's say, this group of pilots doing that. It was really a pleasure. So, it's by its own place, but you can do it in Baixo Gondua for Governador Valadrares and Serra da Mantiqueira. It's another spot between Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas. We can go through this place and I could give more details.
So, when you mentioned those places, those are pretty well-known flying sites. Is that because the – I haven't been to any of these places. I've only been to the Sertau where it's really, really dry. Are these places that are pretty jungly? Are they – is it – or can you hike up and pretty much the tops of every mountain has a possible launch? Or is it really treed and you would have to do some work to create a launch there?
Man, you just touched the exactly point. points, those most of the hiking flight places, they are challenge is to find the takeoff place, okay? And when we are trying to do bivy adventures, we have to be really aware about each place we could take off, because you have to connect those ones. We, it's not easy to, we cannot just hiking up because there is a lot of, there are a lot of trees, and we will never find a place to take off. But those places I mentioned, let's say, we have really well-known places for flying in Brazil, like Baixo Bandu, Governador Valadares, etc. In these places, we have a trail, not the conventional road car, but we have a trail where we can hike up and start the adventure, or start the hike and fly in a conventional, traditional takeoff.
But beyond those, you can find really nice places beyond Baixo Bandu, in the same hill, in the same mountain let's say, you have another spot to take off and connect for a bivy trip we just need to be aware that it will be
let's say high grass, sometimes the grass is really high and sometimes you have really whole rocks and those are dangerous for the lines but you can but it's possible to find those places and and connect this place to an adventure. I'm beginning to talk about those very well, very knowing place, very know place, because everyone knows about that, but there are other mountains amazing to explore. Do
you know what the longest kind of bivy in terms of distance and days has been?
Yes, it was just done by a colleague, a really amazing pilot. He's piloting a Nomega X-Alps. His name is Lucas. And he flew from the top of Espirito Santo until the bottom. He flew for six. His adventure took 16 days doing the adventure. He had two pilots supporting him in the beginning, so they began in three. But two of them had no this challenge. They were there just for fun. And Lucas was really for the challenge. and he had the support from his wife and the distance was he got really bad conditions so he had to walk around 430 kilometers and he flew around 250
so the total that's a lot of walking yes man, it was a lot of walking jeez but this guy, he flew a lot he's a really amazing pilot, one of the best hiking, flying guys here in Brazil for sure more flying than hiking because we have a stronger guy for hiking but he got his bad luck bad luck in the weather so you could
If you had better weather, could you—could you reverse those numbers? Could you fly, you know, 500k and walk 100k or something?
yes for sure for sure because he already did more than 150k kilometers in the region flying and those that's a good marks for a region for for Espirito Santo region, and it could reverse the numbers. The good news regarding flying Espirito Santo for hiking, flying, or bivouac adventures are you can connect the take-offs. I think that's simple for someone coming from Europe because you don't have to mind that too much. Of course, you have to have in mind in that better way you're going to take off, but you can try to take off from anywhere, almost anywhere. But in Espirito Santo and here in Brazil, you have to have those spots in mind.
So if you, your next takeoff could be around 50 kilometers from you. So you have to do at least a good flight, 40 kilometers. It's a good flight for us and hiking 10 kilometers to reach the next point. Okay. If you fly just 10, you have to walk 40. There's no, or you have to go back and start again the next day in the same place we began the day earlier forgive my
geographical ignorance here, but the spirit of Santa is one of the states of Brazil, yes.
It's one of the states already in the southeast, but just below the Bahia, and in the spirit of something you have Basho Bandu, okay? Near it, you have a governor, but more or less in the same latitude, you know? So it's, uh, yep. Okay, wow.
And so, when he did that whole trip, 14 days, was he did he have a lot of land or ground support, or was he trying to be pretty self-sufficient? Or, let me ask a different way, are there lots of little towns and villages where you can get, uh, you know, plenty of food and water, so you don't have to carry that much? Or are you really quite remote and you have to be pretty self-sufficient? No,
Indeed, in this adventure, Lucas had support from his wife Michelle. He's also a pilot, and they passed through a lot of small, small villages, and they didn't, they didn't propose to be full bivouac trips, so they spent some nights in the hole. That was their challenge. The challenge was to cross all the distance just flying and hiking, but they could stay in the small cities, etc. That's a, so that's what their, their, their specific challenge, but we had other adventurers here, here in Brazil, for example, we have a big trail around 600 kilometers. And we made part of it around 400 kilometers just walking and bivouacking.
It's called Transmantiqueira. It's near big mountains in Brazil. between Minas, São Paulo, and Espírito Santo. Those mountains have around 2,400, 2,700 high. And you, same adventure. You can connect the peaks, taking off, and then you will be able to find small cities. But you have to have food for at least two days because you can land in a really jungle zone, in a really wild zone, and it's important to have something to it for sure.
For the listeners who are hearing you and getting excited about coming to Brazil but that haven't flown there, what are the main differences or what would you need to be aware of between doing a bivy trip, say, If you've done one in the Alps, where logistics are really easy and you can hike or not hike because there's lifts and cable cars and to every launch, you know there's good access to weather and sell. What's what's different about Brazil in terms of how you prepare? You know, in other words, could I just come to Sao Paulo and meet you and have my kind of typical bivy kit and and figure it out, or is it really require require quite a bit more planning?
No, it's a really, really fair and good question. I got, I answered the same for some friends who had more experience flying in Alps than me. I have just some, a few small experience flying over there. What I can say and what I read in your books and the books about that, but so the main difference is on hiking. It's here, you regarding your kit, you can have the same kit, okay? You can have a small tent, probably we will find some, uh, rain, so it's important to be prepared for some rain and, and, uh, but we, we don't need to have so, so warming clothes, so it's warming here.
Even flying, you will reach 3000 meters from level C, so it's not so cold as it is in Europe, so we can hike with a light lightness, light, light heavy, and but you have to pay attention in other, in other stuff. The hiking here probably to be more or less wet, it's humid, but you will see, you hiking in the jungle, probably in the most of the place you have a jungle, you'll see butterflies, tucanos, a lot of birds, it's a lot of more life than hiking in the, I can say for sure. And some snakes, it's important to be aware of all the snakes and try to pay attention about that. And so regarding the hiking, it will be really fun to hike in here, amazing places to see, but a lot of nature, a lot of nature, sometimes some animals.
From the takeoff side, our takeoffs are more abrasive. The rock is abrasive. It's very hard to take care of all the lines.
yeah sharp
Yes, thank you. And sometimes the grass is high, and it's—everything is more a little bit wild. It's important to be aware, to be tough for you to be easy, right?
like a
warm alaska
Really, for you, I have impression you don't need to change anything, but just give an overview to to the pilots. And then regarding flying, uh, we our conditions are most of the time are not so strong because we are below that that part from in northeast Brazil, when the guys beat their records, the condition is really strong and the wind is strong. As ever, in our region, the wind is not so strong and the condition is more moderate. And and when the guys find here from an Alps, sometimes they get worried about the wind they feel on the takeoff because it's different from an Alps. But you don't need to care too much about that because we don't have valley winds.
So most of the time, the wind is stronger on the takeoff than in the landing zone. So that wind is good to take off easily, to take care of all the lines, do a really nice takeoff. It's good to have that wind. So it's good to have that in mind but from the general point of view a guy coming from Europe to do a bivouac you don't need so many clothes, you'll find a lot of water, most of the mountains will have a lot of water because the jungle around it and it will be warmer also the people living when you land it, you'll be still a pittoresque, you'll be still a different kind of, so they will come to you, they will compliment you they'll say, oh I come from there, what is this how it works, etc.
That one people, if you learn, Beatrice—Beatrice is the name of my colleague who is living in, in Switzerland, and she comes to have a bivouac trip with us, a real, real friend, and she landed in a barbecue place, so she ate a lot, she drank beer a lot, because just embrace her. Come on, where from? Come on, the people are so nice in Brazil. Yeah, yeah, that, that you notice for sure, the, the difference, those are the main difference you can, you can, you'll find here, uh, and yes, probably you eat for free if you land in there. We had guys landing in the mariage places and these mariage parties and they participate in the part of this kind of, you is too, uh.
picturesque, a different kind of person. It's not so common to see paraglider landing in this different place. Here, we don't have so many pilots tell
me about When I first – my first couple of trips to Brazil were sailing-oriented. I sailed up the coast and past Recife and up to the Caribbean. I did a solo trip there a bunch of years ago. This was before I started flying. Amazing. It was a long time ago though, but it was – I started it – I started near Santos or in Santos. So near Sao Paulo. Yep. And then, and it, at least in the ports along the coast, you know, security was a pretty big issue. Then it was, you know, um, a lot of it was, didn't feel very safe. Uh, and you hear that a lot from some of the Brazilian pilots when I'm, when I'm traveling in other places, they always talk about that certain areas are, are not, not very safe, but I've never experienced, you know, in the Sertal, you didn't have to worry about that.
It didn't felt like to me at all. My experiences were just like what you're describing; just incredibly friendly people in these little villages. And you know, but that Sertau isn't really near any big population centers. But tell me about the security of going through these areas. Is that a big deal? Do you have to worry about it, or do you just have to kind of, kind of be smart?
It's really, really fair question, uh, and yes, the security is a problem in our country, most related with big cities, but of course we have, since we have poor, really poor people, we have a distribution, rather income distribution, one of the worst in the world. So you have people trying to do your way to find your own stuff. I'm just not justifying, just telling that it's an unsafe country regarding security. Yes, in this small village, it's important to pay attention, but most of the guy we don't have. We don't have that kind of common guys being stolen or being under danger in these small villages.
We have to pay a lot of attention when we are still in the airport or leaving the big cities to go to this small place. Of course, I have to agree that we pay a lot more attention to that than someone living or doing bivouac trips in Europe. And if I was doing it with a girl, I should be of double attention because it's a different kind of danger. And if I was a girl doing that alone, I probably am going to try to have someone with me, a male guy. If you are a big guy as you, etc., it's easier to manage this kind of risk. But we don't have mention of people being stolen in this kind of adventure.
Most of the time, you get, yeah, really don't, really don't. But it's important to be already in the big cities.
Tell me about the season. When would be the best time to come? Because I know there's good flying in Brazil year-round, but what would be, what's the best time to come? Yep. And actually, what area would you focus on? So for me, if I was just going to get on a plane and come down there and do some bivy, what would be the area of the country that you would focus, you know, that you would point me to and what time of year?
An amazing question. I would like to say Serra da Mantequeira. That's the hill, a lot of mountains near Sao Paulo, Rio and Minas Gerais because it's my preferred place. But it's not the best place to do BV trips. It's one-off, but it's really challenging, a lot of rent, even an entire year. And hard to take off, hard to connect the takeoff. The best place for BV trips today, day, maybe we can discover other places in the following years, but still Espírito Santo and you can do it regarding the time zone the best time is in the between April and June, let's say, in June it's
winter, so the conditions will be really soft, so it will be hard to do long flights and if you came in January or December, February, the conditions are really hot, but you have a lot of rain in the afternoon. The clover develops every day. And the development is really quicker here than in Europe. The clouds, they develop really, really fast. Sometimes you can get in some traps. So between April, maybe March, for experienced guys, March and May could be, March and June could be the best option. Also in October, November, it's good as well because we are, after the winter, we are coming back to the summer so it could be nice as well.
There's so many, you know, paragliding is really big in Brazil and there's so many really good pilots. What do you chalk that up to? Is that the community pushing everyone or is it just because there's such a great vibe in Brazil with flying or is it the place in the conditions. I always think of the UK. They won the Worlds this year. They don't have great flying in the UK. It's pretty challenging. There's a lot of rain, but they get really good because they can fly in those conditions that are pretty average or low average even. They get really good at flying in really light conditions when there's just tiny bits of lift.
Historically, They have created very well-rounded pilots, and that's something I see in Brazil that there's just I
Think, what do you chalk that?
up to
Yeah, but it's, it's hard to answer that, and I came to paraglide in 2014, so I'm still learning, uh, how it is stuff. But what we can see is in most in the cross country pilots, they, they are really competitive pilots. And in Brazil, there is some kind of feeling, that's my opinion, right? I could say, give some examples, but we as Brazilian, we are really competitive and we want to be the best in that stuff, not the best in the entire world, that's impossible. The best in your group. Let's say about wine, if you are a wine, someone who drink wine in Brazil, the best, the most sold wine, most in 60-70% is the strongest one.
So no one spends time with the other kind or the nuance of the friend. No, it's the strongest one. So if you are going to fly paragliding, probably they will try to evaluate regarding the classes in the paragliding. They will jump from one to another as soon as possible. And they try to reach the distance. So if the game is the cross country and distance, you try to do the best, the distance, the longest flight ever, every day, and you go to the places where you will be able to do that and etc. And I had to make my flight in Quixadá because it's a bigger, the most formal place to do distance and this kind of, and so that's part of our culture to do the best, to push the best, to try.
It's more relatively competitive, of course not everyone is like that, I'm just doing some stereotypes, archetypes, but here in our community for Hike and Fly, we try to avoid that kind of competition, we try to still enjoy just hike and do a flush fly to the ground, a newsletter and that's so we try to keep the flying pleasure as the most important thing and I think we can reach that in some level For example, most of the team doing hiking, flying in Brazil, they still fly in the big hot winds. Most of them don't move to ahead because we get afraid about some hard takeoffs or highly landing place.
So we try to keep it more or less safe. And we can do good flights, 50 kilometers, 60 kilometers. We around see it as a really amazing, good flight. Maybe we can change that mindset in the near future. But we try to do this balance between risk and performance, but I think Brazil produce good pilots because that competitivity in the pilots in each small group has his own competitive, and these guys try to do their best. We really enjoy to do the best. It's some kind I can see over here, like I said about wine, but that could apply in a lot of other stuff.
It's just the culture, yes. I didn't really know that.
About Brazilians, I guess it makes sense. It's, it's, it's not fair to say that as a generic stuff, but we can see that in the guys because everyone pilot in a paraglider, it's already someone with not pretty weird, yeah, pretty weird, yeah.
We're all, we're all odd ducks, yeah, for sure. The um, how many just got a curiosity, do you know how many pilots there are in Brazil? And I know that, how do you define the pilot? Is that one flight a year? But do you know how many registered your organization?
We have another country organization, a federal organization. It's an association from the pilots. It's called CBVL. I don't know how many of them are active. I can say from our local club, we have a local club here in Atibaia. We have around, uh, 300 pilots, uh, playing and and flying in here near, but we are really near Sao Paulo. We are the most near place to fly in Sao Paulo, so we have a big number of guys because, but in Brazil, it's hard to say. And I, I should avoid to give you that number because probably to be a wrong one, but I can say we are not, uh, real, real, uh, big market for paragliding, for paraglider in the world that I can say for, for sure.
And a good, a good thing that we have South Paraglider here, the, the companies and in paraglider, they are producing the South Brazil, and that is simulates a lot the, the esport in Brazil. Probably if we didn't have, if we didn't have the soft paragliding, it should be even even less number of the pilots but it's hard to tell, maybe 5,000 pilots, maybe 10,000 I cannot say honestly, sorry that
sounds probably pretty similar to the states do you feel like it's growing? Do you feel like paragliding is becoming more popular? Are the numbers increasing or does it stay? Because here in the States, it doesn't. It stays kind of the same. You know, there's lots of people learning, but then lots of people quitting. So the overall number stays pretty same year after year.
What I can say is the hiking and flying is taking a lot of attention because when we are in flight, flying takeoffs, a lot of people pay a lot of pilots. They really enjoy to see the small pack paraglider, the light paraglider, so they really get we still have those guys flying with really heavy equipment. A lot of of us are flying with those, so the hiking fly, it's in, it's growing between the pilots, and also we are taking attention from climbers and people doing hiking and trackers. They're moving to paragliding because today it's easy to to fly a paraglider, let's say, if we're not going going to do a traverse etc.
It's it's not so complicated. The equipment is already more secure than 20 years ago, that's what I mean. It's more easy to join the sport today than 20 years ago; it was a lot more dangerous from our point of view. But the sport itself, uh, it's hard to say if the number is increasing. We don't have really trustable statistics in Brazil, even the association. Some guys don't like the association that much. Other ones, they love the association. And the number, if you are associated, then you'll be there, but you can be a not active pilot anymore.
Leandro, tell me about, you know, with hike and fly. When I first got into bivvy, this was a long time ago, we used to talk about that it was, you know, in a place like the Alps, you don't have to make it hard. In other words, you can land in the valley. You don't have to top land. You don't have to do a lot of the things that are sometimes required in what I would call more of a kind of sexy bivy, where you only have the initial hike to the top and then you stay high. And you pick a time in the day before it's really died off and you can stick it in in some tiny little place and camp there and basically stay high for the duration of the trip. But that requires quite a bit more skill because top landing is, of course, more risky and harder to do.
When you said there's a school there near where you are, and there's a kind of a big pusher, you know, it's pretty welcoming to get into Bivy. How, what is your—what are you guys telling the newer people? How do you—how do—how do people—how should people start flying Bivy? Mm-hmm.
We today for the students, the hiking flyer B-block trips, they are more for three days only, most of the time three days only, and they most of them hiking up at the more at the afternoon or at the morning, they expand the day on the mountain, let's say, and they pass the nights, no, sorry, let's say the classical one, they hiking up at the afternoon, so they expand the night on the mountain. In the takeoff, they could be there after they took off at the morning, most of them around 10 a.m., 9 a.m. before the strong conditions, so they can land in the valley, not in the European valley, we call it valley, but it's more flat land, and landed over there, they pack everything, and And they go to the next mountain.
They eat something. Sometimes they eat on the city. Sometimes they eat what they have. And we go to the next mountain. That's the classical BV trip for the students. So they don't try to do landing and takeoff, top landing. They don't do top landing. And if the conditions are strong, they don't go. Sometimes they don't go. But most of them are really good pilots. but they are starting on the BV, so they can manage that when you're doing—when we are doing the, or let's say, hardcore, when you're trying to explore new place, when so it's a few pilots, three sometimes four, and then that's conditions. We set a line of possible takeoffs for the next day.
Sometimes they—they are good. Sometimes they are not that good. And we try to do top landing. We really try. Sometimes we can do it. Sometimes we don't. And most of the time, you have to hike the next day. Because to do a top landing in these kind of mountains, you have to have a high base. We don't have mid-zone top landing. Are you landing in the top or are you landing in the valley? Okay, and sometimes, so you have to have a high base, you have to climb a lot, you have to to manage to do. We did it really amazing top landings already, and we already flushed because it just flowed down amazingly miserably sometimes, and have to most of the time you have to hike again in the next day.
Okay, that's the common stuff, and we try to do part of the hiking at the beginning of the night, so we camp in, let's say, one third of the the way we already did yesterday night, so we can be already far away from the small village, so we know a smaller risk. We don't need to be, we avoid to be in the train stations or in the in the city itself. Most of the time we try to find another place, a grass place, we land, we come to there and finish the hike in the next today are
You typically going south to north? That's just what I have in my mind because you're down in Sao Paulo, but or is it north to south, east to west? What's the kind of typical line? Or are you mostly trying to do out and backs? You know, would you start near where you are and go north a couple days and then back south, or what? What's kind of the predominant wind?
nice we have a predominant wind northeast northeast wind here in brazil okay and most Most of these mountains, even in Espirito Santo and Rio de Janeiro and also between Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, you can fly with northeast winds. And we already tried to do heading width from the southwest to northeast and sometimes from northeast to… But a good line here could be we began in the mountains. And these mountains are around, you have, let's say, it's sea, sea level. You have a hill and a plateau. And after that, another hill to these mountains we are talking about, Serra da Mantequera, for example.
And we try to begin in the middle of the mountains and reach the ocean. That reach the ocean. So we are flying to east. Not sure if my question. But we are flying to east. so we begin in the high and we can try different peaks after that we jump from the high place to another one we fly in this zone and after that we can fly to the beach, it's not easy but it's amazing it's not easy because again because the trees, because we just have a few taking off zones, but one of the most amazing hiking flights was in this way, so we did me and my friend, we did 150 kilometers flying and we walk around less than 10 kilometers because we were able to do a top landing.
But two guys from the group, they did it in two days. So they flew around 60 in the first day and in the second day, almost 90 and they could reach the ocean. That'd be special. That's always special. And most of the time when you reach the ocean, you have that clouds, low clouds because the ocean is It's 800 meters below the, let's say, the terrain when we began. So we have the clouds are below you. So you reach sometimes 700 meters above those clouds. And you have to go down. You have to go through. It's really, really amazing. I can share some images with you. It's amazing. And for experienced pilots, it's not that hard. It's hard to us because we are mid-experience.
But it should be amazing. But that kind of venture, many guys in Brazil don't do this. Many pilots don't try this. That's why it's important to have a website showing the routes, showing the easiest routes, how we can begin. It's good. So your website has all this kind
of information so listeners could get on there and kind of do some study beforehand, before coming?
Yes, but the new stuff is always a little bit outdated because I'm not able to update it as we are doing. But yes, there is a lot of information over there—the routes to to hike up, etc.—but you still need a lot of, uh, help on this. We have just a few, a few tracks over there; a lot of more work should be done to to fill that. It's more like a collaboration for another pilot to have pilots in south doing hiking flying, this kind of adventure in south in a week, etc. And some of them are sending the tracks to the website, and we try to keep that. But someday, we expect to have a lot more, a lot more tracks or routes over there easy to guys to follow. And you still need to put it in English as well; that's our fault.
What
Uh, what apps are you using for mapping and topography and roads and that kind of thing? And then, what briefly lay out your—your kind of typical instrument package? Edge, are you just flying with a phone and you're in a Fly Sky High—I mean, sorry, in an app like Fly Sky High—and then a, you know, a small vario? Is that kind of it?
We, we try to keep... we each one has their own barometer. Some of them have maps, other no, others don't have maps. But what we do is we use a lot of Google Earth, yeah. Even it's a... it's easy to use Google Maps as well. We have been using Fat Maps, yeah. It's one good to take a good trail, yes. And some guys have specific, uh, apps in the mobile phone for flying. I don't use those; I use the just the variometer because I ran no more or less the... the mountains and the lines, they have that in mind. But for someone coming new, they could take advantage of those. You... you... you said or Google words, it works good as well here in because you can download the offline maps.
Is the... is the self-coverage
Pretty good. Are you guys able to, you know, create a Telegram group or something to stay in touch with one another, or are you mostly relying on InReach, uh?
We are relying on, uh, regarding you mean regarding the one pilot to speaking with her? Do we have WhatsApp groups? Okay, well, we, we contact more within WhatsApp groups, but the guys are really collaborative and that way, and everyone loves to share their rules that we don't compete to do the best one. Instead, most of the time, when someone starts at some kind of adventure, the others provide a lot of support in providing info, giving in tips regarding... we didn't spoke about that, but regarding the landing zones, we don't have those kind of cables coming down from the mountain to the valley. Those ones who took the tell the bleak and other guys in the x-off really risk ones, we don't have this kind of, but we have small cables in the landing zones.
near the rounds and the streets, so we have to pay a lot of attention to those 20 10 meters small cable. We already have some accidents on on that, sure, in the valleys. Yeah, so they share this kind of information. Pay attention on these, or you can land over there, or better net. Oh, you know, No, there is a trail that you can use to hike up again to that mountain if you land in the north face sometimes. Because we are not so strict regarding where are the trails.
It's important to – if you're coming, it's good to have contact with someone. We would be happy to support, to help, to give a lot of info. But between the guys here, it's collaborative. The guys are really nice. I
don't know if you're familiar with this, but there was – and I wish – it has a cool name. I forget the name of this. But for years – and I don't know if they're still doing it. But for years, there was a hang gliding. They would cross big chunks of Brazil with hang gliders. And so it was kind of a bivy, but with hang gliders. So obviously, they weren't carrying their stuff up to launch. It was supported by trucks or cars, but they would cover a lot of ground. It went on for a long time. Are they still doing that?
There are some initiatives like that. We have a big event in Northeast. I don't remember exactly the name right now, unfortunately, but it was something like crossing the Sertão, crossing the wild zones. And there were guys with hang glider, paragliding, also some guys with, uh, paramotor—you know, paraglider with motor—and they were covering a huge distance, doing an event with cars supporting. Then, it was really amazing and with a lot of sponsorship and brands involved with that. I will remember the name to the end, but
That's up in the northeast. That's kind of up in the, okay?
okay so
it's totally different
really different in our in our zone, we we don't have this kind of most of the adventures I've been doing by paragliding because the mountains are hard to reach. Most of these mountains are hard to reach with a car; they don't have trails over there, you need—they don't have a road over there, it's you have to do it with a paraglider, no No way to do it on gliding.
Okay, okay. What do you think the most aggressive objective could be? Where could you start and where could you end potentially? Is there a string of mountains? I should have looked closer at the maps before we got on the phone here. But is there a chain of mountains, the Alaska Range or the Rockies, that you could start at one tip and get to the other tip you know a thousand kilometers away or something uh
Yes, one of those challenges is still open because it was done partially only by a colleague called Fabio Ferreira. He did part of this, but we just, uh, the Brazilian Trails community, they just launched, they just started a biggest one of the biggest trails in Brazil. It's called Transmantiqueira, so you will begin, you will begin here near Sao Paulo, 200 kilometers from Sao Paulo. The trail has 900 kilometers, the total trail. You need to pass through the biggest peaks, some of the biggest peaks in Brazil, because you have better than a minute to 1700 meters, and it's in the middle of this trail, and we have several
possible take-off points in this trail and it will finish beyond Rio de Janeiro above it and you will pass through one of the biggest or most important mountains in Brazil because we have from 10 peaks, the 10 highest peaks in Brazil, 9 of them are in this in this hill in that chain and you can try to connect no one did it fully yet
But it is still a challenge. Fabio did more than half; he did more than I don't remember exactly, almost 500 kilometers, but he could not complete the entire zone because the conditions changed. So we had rain, so it was hard. That's one of the big challenge, but we have other ones in the Spirit of Santo, as Lucas did, et cetera. That's always nice.
Has that not been done because it's just really hard to get the right conditions to pull it off? You know, there's just too much jungle, too much, or is it just because not enough people have tried?
Both of them. Both of them. It's not easy. Even for a really high experience, it could be challenging because they're taking off just a few and you have to connect them. But in the conditions, you have to be here ready for the conditions. You can have one week, full week of good weather; it doesn't happen every month. You have to be here and try and have some luck to accomplish, I think, both of them. But the view is amazing and adventure, it's worth for sure. We will be trying that for our entire lives if necessary to accomplish public, yeah. But some reinforcement will be, some reinforcement will be welcome, yeah, yeah.
No, it's just, I'm so glad you reached out because I, it just hasn't been something at all on my radar, you know? Obviously, I've known that the flying in Brazil is incredible since I got into this sport, because there's, like I said, there's so many great Brazilian pilots and you just, you hear about it all the time and it's very reliable to have comps there. And, uh, and then of course the, the, the famousness of, of the Sertau, but I hadn't thought about Bivy that much there. And I don't know why it's, uh, it's, um, I applaud you, you and your group and all your colleagues to that you set, you're, you're chasing it and making it happen. And thanks for sharing your story with us. I really appreciate it. And, uh, next time I come down there, I'm coming down with my Bivy kit.
head now
Please, you will be welcome, and you'll be good to have a opinion from guys from outside. Most of the time we are doing just with brazilians who had now the visit from beatriz, he's from switzerland as I said, but it's not we had andy over here, but he didn't come join us in this kind of adventure, but to be good to have opinion from guys from outside to improve our own levels, to to learn a lot with you guys experienced guys, and we of course will be able to share something that that we know from here, the region, et cetera, what we already did.
Leandro, we've talked quite a bit about Bivi, but you sent me an email about some kind of cool, the highest peak in Brazil. Tell me about that.
Oh, it was really an amazing adventure because the highest peak in Brazil is in the middle of a jungle, the Amazon jungle, really north of Brazil, Brazil, almost 2,000 kilometers from Manaus, that is the biggest center in the north of the country. And the adventure over there is, the peak has almost 3,000 meters and to reach there, you have to press to Yanomami, the indigenous Yanomami guys, so they are the guides for this trail. You cannot reach that place alone or you can be killed by them by... Sure. Because they control the zone but they are really friendly Finally, if you come with them, of course, they are developing,
it's important to say that, they are developing an ecotourism program. So in the following years, anyone will be able to reach this peak because they will have a company leading guys over there. But to reach this peak, you have to go one day flying, one day with a car, another day in the ship, a small ship, those fishing ships, really small, and four days walking in the jungle. Wow, so it's a lot of venture, a lot of people to reach there you have. And these guys, the Yanomami, they were rich in 60s, so they are already more or less occidental person, but they are still speaking in their idiom. They don't speak even Portuguese very well, so you still have a indigen experience.
They cook for you; they are looking for animals in the jungle to hunt them. It's... It's interesting to see. And you move from the jungle to a plateau at 2,000 meters. So you change a lot regarding the climate. You pass from a really humid jungle to a place more dry and colder. And after that, you do a final step climbing to the peak around 2,993. and no one flew from Triglider from there until 2019.
Sorry for my English. And I had the opportunity to take off from there in January 2019, do a flyover over the jungle because you have to fly to the east. So you just take off around 3,000 meters, let's say, a difference from takeoff from the jungle oh nice
10,000 feet foot glide, oh man.
but you don't go to the gun because there is no place to land in the jungle. You have to contour the mountain and land behind it in the plateau, because you have a plateau behind the mountain. So it was really amazing because you look to each and all sides and you see just jungles and jungles, and you feel, feel really the exposure. You're exposed, right? You cannot do mistakes. The landing, they take off place, it's not that it's short, but it's enough. And so one guy explained, 10 days over there, I have to thank God for this kind of... I don't know if I have a reason, that doesn't matter, but I have to thank God because one guy spent 10 days in the peak trying to fly in 2010 and he had no chance.
It's... It's always covered by rain or clouds. It's impossible to take off because you have to see. And I got really blessed, let's say, because I climbed it yesterday afternoon. I spent one night in the rain, really strong rain. But in the afternoon, everything was clear. And just, let's say, a perfect wind to take off. so it was if you was it
thermic at all? Was where do you get? No, I did.
I did, I did that. I took off around 7 a.m., between 6 and 7, because it was too risky to try a thermal flight. I have no balls to that. I'm just about to take off and do a morning fly, and it was amazing. So when I landed behind, behind the mountain, the guys speaking, because they recorded the guys speaking in their language, it was amazing in the radio. The Indians, the Yanomami talking, the radio. You need to rescue that guy because he's in the middle of there. If you don't go there, no one will be able to, to hear you. Should be there until today. So the guys came and and helped me to to get out. It was really, really. If we get back to there, we need to go with tumbling, gliding, to bring some Yanomamis to their own village.
It's possible to fly from the peak to their village, and it could be a really, really amazing thing to do.
Oh, man, you blow their mind. That would be so awesome. I had a really special experience decades ago in the Amazon. I've been through a lot of these places. You're, you're talking about Manaus and stuff, but they, uh, the, I spent a few days in the jungle with a local who had grown up in the jungle. He wasn't Yanamami, but I don't remember what tribe. It's amazing to see the jungle through their eyes, because when you, when you, when you, for those who haven't been in, in the Amazon, in the jungle, you, you hear everything that the sounds day and night are just, it's a cacophony of beautiful sound. It's just amazing, right? But you don't see any of the stuff you know to see, the swaths and the monkeys and the lizards and the snakes and everything.
You have to have lived in the jungle, or be with a guide who can go watch this, and then they make, they make all these sounds, and they know how to talk to all the, the animals in the forest, and it's really a very special experience to, to, to be in the Amazon with someone who's grown up there, because it's, a, yeah, it's their, it's their place. They understand it, they know what they're looking at, because we just see this beautiful canopy, and it's, it's hard to, at least for me, it was. I remember, you know, you don't, you don't see any of that stuff until you can see it through their eyes, and they can point it all out
I mean, it's for me, it's impossible, uh, either it's impossible to say we need to have their help to enjoy the jungle. We look and they see a lot of, uh, trees, trees, et cetera, and the small grass, and the arbust, they know it, the name. The name tree, this word tree, they don't have this word as a common. They have the name of each, the generic one doesn't make much sense for them. And I feel the same experience. We are born in the cities, we are unable to really deal with that environment. environment, and I also agree with you. The highest experience you got in this takeoff from the highest peak here in Brazil was not the flight. The flight was amazing, I'm really glad, but it was the experience with the guys in the jungle.
Yeah, I completely follow you on this. I completely agree with you on this. I'm
Sure, and I'm sure that was really special, meandro. Thank you, man, I appreciate it. And, uh, happy flights, safe landings, and and, uh, keep having fun if
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