The craziness of Malaguita's life part.2

Manu showed us the house, He prepared everything for us including dinner and a typical liquor from Competa - sweet wine. We sat on the terrace overlooking the whole town and we knew that this is our place to sleep on mattresses in the open air with views of shooting stars (seriously like in the movie).
It was warm enough so we didn’t need even blankets. Impressions from the whole week and enclosed screen with stars before our eyes for a long time did not allow us to sleep. Nobody expects such hospitality… ...In the morning the sun and the smell of coffee woke us up..It was prepared by Manu. Was it really supposed to be a survival trip? On the terrace southern-spanish breakfast was already waiting : Jamon serrano, fresh bread and tomatoes soaked in olive oil and Andalusian specialty: coffee with condensed milk.

Manu planned our day, he said that day in Competa was a day of wine and he takes us to the celebration of the town center. Another fiesta in a different climate: flamenco, sevillanas and wine markets. Something beautiful! Malaguitas have an excellent kindness but most of all they are spontaneous therefore Javi threw us command that he takes us to the pool in the hotel (in which we didn’t have accommodation, so in theory we shouldn’t be there) and in the evening at the Andalusian dinner and disco latino. We felt real southern life ... we could taste special dishes such as gazpacho, pulpo, grilled shrimp, etc. Real heaven ! The next day, breakfast, coffee and replay of entertainment and day of flying ... Malaguitas drove us to the beach where we could play instruments in a tent constructed by Manu. Later we went to the hill where Malaguitas began their first steps with glide. That's where the boys had to bounce off the ground and we could admire their extreme tricks from the ground. After landing, the words guys used to express ther feelings was: "f*** .... it’s imposiblle what Javier is doing in the air, he knows no borders, knows what that risk." This state of astonishment accompanied them for a good few days.

Before we left town, Manu took us on tour around beautiful area and showed Andalusia on the side of nature, he devoted so much time showing us his own plot of land on which grows avocados and other fruits.

Next day we had to say goodbye and set off down of the map.

The craziness of Malaguita's life

After a 4-day stay with my beloved Spanish family, full of fun and exciting memories, we charged our batteries, ready for the next part of our trip. There came the time to say goodbye which wasn’t an easy task... Then we jumped into the car and one of the biggest boys’ dream was within their reach: a meeting with the most famous acrobatic paramotor pilot in the world - Javier Tejeiro Lopez Malaguita. Javi is a boy from Competa (a city near Malaga) who we met during Paragliding World Cup in Legnica. He is a real volcano of positive energy who loves risk-taking adventures. His incredible acrobatics in the air are absolutely spectacular. It seems that he flies against gravity. We had to travel 900km to reach Competa. After a 10-hour journey we finally reached our destination. The road to Javi’s house was a bit dangerous as it involved a lot of sharp bends…

a view from terrace

a street of Cómpeta

Narrow streets, sharp bends and a lot of dangerous precipices evoked the unwelcome symptoms of carsickness that we all knew from the childhood. Finally we reached Malaguita’s home (Malaguita is Javi's nickname). His father,Manu, and two brothers, welcomed us very warmly. We made a small traditional greeting ceremony by giving them a loaf of bread, salt and vodka from Poland. They were charmed and delighted by this tradition which is also strongly associated with Polish hospitality. Sir Manu had taught his sons paragliding since their early childhood. Later on, they decided to take one step forward - ACRO. They are doing extraordinary air shows which for an average guy seem impossible to be real (you can watch the video below ). Now they are the most popular acro-pilots in the world and the only ones who are able to do acrobatics while wearing a motor (known also a paramotor) on their back which is very challenging due to the weight that they have to carry during the flight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KethFAKIn94

Funes, eu!

After a very warm welcome we went to the apartment which my Spanish family prepared especially for us with all the necessary amenities.

They gave us an hour to dress up in "Fiestas" costumes and we went to celebrate with dozens of people on the streets. The day of "Fiestas" begins in exactly the same way as it ends: dancing and singing start from 9 a.m. and they last till 5 a.m. next day. One may ask: Where does the energy of all those people come from? Most likely its because of drinking litres of traditional Spanish wine from La Riojy which tastes really good.

Fiestas is a time of the year when everyone is celebrating, not only young people but also the elderlies and kids. They sit all together in pubs so the generation gap seems to be not existed any more. From time to time they go to observe bullfighting (corrida) or the running of the bulls, where the bulls are lead through the streets. Sometimes you can notice the march of Charanga which is sort of parade of the local musical band. The musicians (most of them are amateurs) hold "Gigantes" - two literally gigantic puppets which aim to resemble King and Queen of the town.

It's hard to put into words the joy and energy that all those people in Funes gave us and their amazing hospitality. They offered us a lot of popular Spanish dishes and took to the places where we had not even dreamed of.

Therefore, I'm sharing with you some of my pictures, they can somehow illustrate the great time we had in Funes!
                                                         

Funes, we're coming!

After spending a great time at the Dune of Pilat we needed a bit of refreshment. Suprisingly, we couldn't find any publicly available shower, even at the gas stations and huge parkings by the motorway. Finally, after crossing the Spanish border, we found a camping where we could take a shower and get rid of tonnes of sand from our bodies and clothes which we collected during our various adventures at the dune.

Then we jumped into the car and one of my biggest dream was about to happen. According to our schedule, the next stop was Funes, the place where over one year ago I left "my second family” and I came back to Poland. Funes is a small town in Navarre ( northern Spain) which will always take a special place in my memory. My Spanish family was waiting for us from the early morning. The most impatient members of the family were Unax and Gaizka- the children who I was looking after for six months. In that time there was a Spanish feast called "FIESTAS”. It's kind of festival where everyone is dressed in white during the whole week.An obligatory element of the outfit is a characteristic red ribbon or sort of red cravat or shawl.

We came to Funes in the morning when the Corrida was taking place in the middle of the town so a lot of people were celebrating on the streets. Boys decided to welcome everyone from the air so they flew on paragliders over the city, holding Polish flags in their hands! It was such a spectacular moment! I was so excited to see my Spanish family after such a long time so we quickly went to their house to hug them!

Damian, thank you!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1twwTBEERY

To present some of my trip reports, I would like to share with you a song which accompanied us throughout the whole journey. Moving from place to place, we proudly screamed its Polish words, even while being on parking lots or gas stations. It helped us overcome tiredness and stopped our drivers from falling asleep. The author of that song is Damian Syjonfam. Damian, thanks for being with us for those two weeks ;)

lyrics in english:

Let the River rise here,

River next to which I could live.

The River from which water I could drink,

Like those who were here before me.

Let the driver does not wait, I'm staying here.

I will be part of what is going to be here,

I will celebrate ordinary customs,

Like those who were here before me.

A place will rise here,

A little bit better than the others.

It will be open,

For people of good will.

For the simple people of the village,

Who will leave their cares.

We will meet on the town,

All of you, just bring, good word

That is more valuable than the bread,

Harmony of spirit is what we need today.

Make your mind to be like rich soil

Don't try to understand it, just feel it.

The world is yours.

Don't try to understand it.

(second time)

Let the River rise here,

River next to which I could live.

The River from which water I could drink,

Like those who were here before me.

Let the driver does not wait, I'm staying here.

I will be part of what is going to be here,

I will celebrate ordinary customs,

Like those who were here before me.

A place will rise here,

A little bit better than the others.

It will be open,

For people of good will.

For the simple people of the village,

Who will leave their cares.

We will meet on the town,

All of you, just bring, good word

That is more valuable than the bread,

Harmony of spirit is what we need today.

Make your mind to be like rich soil

Don't try to understand it, just feel it.

The world is yours.

Don't try to understand it.

we are unknowingly rebels

We drank a couple bottles of beer, then jumped into our sleeping bags and felt asleep underneath the stars. That night was really cold and windy.

When I woke up, I saw something that I found quite weird... I saw several bunches of people, some of them standing next to us, staring at us, some of them looked like they were on the school trip. It was 10 a.m. and we wore warm clothes and hats while all those people around had flip-flops and short sleeve T-shirts. Initially, I thought it was a dream but as it turned out soon later it wasn't a dream ... We realised that we were in the limelight...

We started looking around and the view we had ahead of us was like a big screen of National Geographic Channel - the immensity of the ocean with many small islands way off in the distance took our breaths away. Tomek and Bartek, our impatient paragliders, ran as fast as they could for the equipment to start their dream, long-awaited paragliding adventure! It's difficult to describe their feelings at that time and what they had experienced in the air, but their huge smiles after landing told us everything!

After a long, exhausting day, full of excitement and different activities, we returned to the car. Bartek went to the machine to pay for the parking. He prepared 4 Euro as this price we saw by the praking entrance. To our huge disappointment, the machine said: 48 Euro. What was our reaction? Everybody screamed like a choir: "Whaaat?!". We would spent this money on at least four dinners!! We are not materialists but our expenses were carefully calculated so 48 Euro was like fortune for us. It turned out that 4 Euro wasn't a single fee but the price for one hour...We spent there 12 hours which gave us 48 Euro.There is a common saying in Poland which perfectly matches this event: "a Pole is wise after the event" ... well said.

In addition to this unexpected information, the lady working at the car parking told us that we had been sleeping in the National Park which is strictly prohibited! 

Rebels!

The Dune of Pilat

The Dune of Pilat (officially known as Dune du Pyla) was our next stop. Dune du Pyla is a real paradise for paragliders (two of them we had in our car). The tallest sand dune in Europe - this sentence made us feel extremely excited.

We got to the place late in the evening. We found a parking in the middle of the forest where we saw a caption: "4 Euro". Thoughtlessly, we parked our car there. Suddenly a question arose in our minds: "Does the price include overnight stay?". Unfortunately, we didn't care about the answer ... Having changed our clothes we started to explore the greatness of this place! We pumped up our mattress, then we did a quick bath and dressed in layers as the weather at night was very windy. We started to climb the dune. The darkness didn't allow us to precise our exact location, but after 40 minutes of scramble, we landed on the top of the dune. At that time, no one of us could realise what would we see in the early morning ..