Thank you for all your support

So, did we set a record? No, we just never got the conditions and 125km was the best distance achieved by any of us. Unusual rainfall lowered the cloud base and we never really had the opportunity but as a potential world record breaking area, this place has all of the ingredients. Our final two days, Wednesday and Thursday never really delivered with light winds on Wednesday and Thursday plagued with massive storm development. There were flights on both days but the flights were fairly unremarkable. Despite our bad luck with conditions we felt privileged to to have had the opportunity to experience this remarkable area and are still determined to give it another shot. We are planning a return visit in November for another attempt at breaking records and are looking for 2 new team members. If you have really solid flying skills, are prepared to put up with almost unbearable ground temperatures, unmentionable digestive problems (weall suffered), and lots of discomfort in exchange for a remarkable experience and a shot at a world record, we'd like to hear from you. Since leaving Quimili we've met up with the Flight Culture group and first headed to La Cumbre, about 60 miles from Cordoba in the Sierras de Cordoba. Although this is our 4th night here, yesterday is the onlyday that we've flown, but what a day! We rode horses for an hour and ahalf to take-off before some stunning thermic flying. Some of the group flew for more than 2 hours in quite testing conditions. Today it rained quite heavily and some of us went mountain biking down to the Cuchi landing field and for a swim in the river while the rest went to Los Torrones; a remarkable canyon where we scrambled along the river before climbing up to the canyon rim. Erosion has carved the rocksinto incredible shapes and this is reflected in it's name; Quebrada dela Luna or Canyon of the Moon.

28 Feb.
On our way to the town of Nono to fly the Altas Cumbres. The drive from La Cumbre is takes about 2 hrs and follows the mountains tothe SW. During the Flight Culture trip we will staying in 3 separate areas; La Cumbre, Nono and Merlo and our accommodation is in cottages.We are being hosted by our Argentinean friends Martin (Who was inQuimili) with us), Rodrigo, and Javier who have helped us with organisational logistics. Having locals with us has been great; it's given us a much better understanding of the country and people as well as providing invaluable local flying knowledge.

28 - 4 March.
There are 2 main take-offs above the town of Nono,Alfahores and Micky' and over the 5 days we flew them both. The scenery's very rugged and beautiful and flying conditions ranged from quite light to very strong thermic. Unfortunatly, we were plagued by south winds which made XC flights difficult. The landing field at Nono certainly deserves a mention as it's large, open, and has a terrific little bar, but the best part is the Baño Del Dios (or the "toilet of the gods"). It's a natural rock pool in a small river with a waterfall dropping into it. The rock walls surrounding it are great for jumping off of and the highest point is about 30 ft above the pool.

4 - 8 March.
We went on to Merlo which offered us the highesttake-off, 1100 m above the landing field. Our first 3 days were more south winds but we were in a better position for cross-country flying and we had distances of up to 77 km. The flying was often quite turbulant and we had climbs in excess of 6.5 m/s. Unfortunatly we also had huge cloud development at quite low levels. Friday, the final day, sould have been the best with winds swinging to the NW, but the cloudbase was at take-off height so the best achieved was just under 30Km...

....So, what now?
Well, in early April we'll be running an expedition toBaja where we'll be flying some existing sites as well as developing new ones. Because a lot of Baja is very wild, we'll be using 4 wheeldrives and much of the trip will be wild camping. If you like the idea of cooking our dinner over a campfire and waking in the morning to the sound of coyote's howling, drop us an e-mail as we have 1 place left to fill.We will be back to Argentina in November for another shot at some big flights as well as running a trip next March.We'll keep the blog while in Baja and try to get some photos up as well.