The small village of Somanga on the Zambezi Escarpment, full of dirty, happy children, and home of the friendly, helpful village headman – Atkins. From takeoff, the escarpment drops almost 700m to the valley floor below. On takeoff, the relatively cool 35 deg C breeze is blowing straight onto launch. Chippy launches. The plan is that I will join him quickly and together we will head off for an exploratory XC flight from the new site. I check that Chippy is established in a thermal and climbing well then launch. While I scratch around in weak lift, barely making it above takeoff, Chippy is climbing quickly more than 1000m above me. After getting low, I finally find a weak thermal and cling desperately to it as I drift over the back – barely 70m above the top. Far from comfortable, with a climb rate of only a few meters per turn, I hope that the bowl I am drifting towards will produce something better.
By now Chippy is almost lost in the haze, more than 1600m agl. He radios me, asking what my intentions are. Smart-ass – if I could relax long enough to get my hands on the radio I’d thow it at him! Finally my vario starts talking to me. It gets positively chatty as I begin a fast steady climb to 2000m. Passing through an inversion layer at 1500m things get a bit bouncy, but quickly settle back down to a smooth 4m/s.
The escarpment stretches out before me. The Mavuradonha Mountains are only a couple of km’s away. The thermals are steady, but widely spaced. I drop over the edge of the escarpment and by the 20 km mark I am down among the foothills of mountains. I keep one eye out for thermal sources and the other open for animals. This area is both outrageously beautiful and home to abundant wildlife. Even in camp, nestled among the Msasa trees, elephants, leopard, and baboons roam freely nearby. This morning’s wakeup call at 6 am was a troop of cheeky monkeys. Crowded around Chippies sleeping form, they were trying to steal a packet of sweets. A couple of them were helping themselves to the remains of last night’s braai. Max crawled out of his thatched hut, and together we chased off the intruders.
Low now, down amongst the heat of the Zambezi Valley, I search out a weak thermal. It quickly drifts me back into the mountains and strengthens rapidly. Before long my vario is singing at almost 5m/s and the world drops away beneath me. No hope of seeing any wildlife from this height, so I turn and push downwind.
Landing beside a native village causes the usual hectic excitement, and within minutes I am totally surrounded. I am the first paraglider ever seen here, and the babble of excited chatter is overwhelming. Villagers of all ages are intrigued, all asking questions, laughing at each other’s attempts to speak broken English. The heat is stifling. The dry red earth has been baking in the sunlight for centuries, and in no time I am covered in fine dust. Once packed up, a huge flock of children lead me past mud huts and dry, bare fields, out to the road 2 km’s away. I settle down under a tree with a book. Around me patient villagers are quietly waiting for the local bus. It will come when it arrives. In this ancient land time has no meaning and is no source of stress. The occasional pick-up goes past, stopping to add passengers if they can be squeezed in. The stifling heat is no barrier to overcrowding.
The locals are as friendly as usual and between the chatting, I get directed to the nearest water. It arrives out of the ground already warm, but is welcome and refreshing.