By Andrew Morgan

The Atacama Desert has a legend - of strong thermals cranking up off the beach which can take you to cloudbase. Or so the legend was told by Marcello, a paragliding instructor in Santiago, Chile.
Such a story should be gauged with suspicion and contempt! "Beach to cloudbase, I don't think so!"
But Marcello persisted. "You must go to the Atacama Desert to a place called Iqique, where you launch at the beach and fly to cloudbase."

The Atacama Desert flanks the western side of South America. Skirting alongside the Andean mountain range, it begins above Santiago in Chile and reaches several thousand kilometres north to Ecuador. It is one of the driest, most mongrel places on Earth, where not even a blowfly, blade of grass, nor solitary cacti dare exist. The sanity of going there is debatable. Its vastness is tiring and endless, with sandy flats going on forever. It is extremely isolated. Its few inhabitants survive on oasis soaks and rivers which cross Andean mountain passes and head west to provide life giving irrigation waters. In Iqique (pronounced i- kick- i), mining and fishing keep the population going.

Early on my first morning in Iqique, I find myself scanning the waterfront for these so-called thermals. I find a group of black vultures just off the surf, and yes, they are turning and actually going up! I meet up with Phil Maltry, a Swiss born instructor, who owns the landing field and lodge facilities. I am taken to the top cliff launch site, 500m elevation, where a procession of tandem flights launch and scoot along the ridge. I launch and assess the air for thermals, scouting along the ridge for about 7km before coming back to fly over the city high rises and land on 'la playa' (Spanish for beach).

In the afternoon I travel about 15km south of town with a pilot named Aroldo to a place called Palabookie. Here the mountains are close to the ocean; over eons, deep, golden desert sand has covered almost all their sides. A group of students ground handle their gliders on a nearby sand dune off the beach. Aroldo announced, "We are here."
"What, you mean at the landing ground?"
"No, this is launch and landing ground. Same thing. Launch at sand dune and go to cloud!"

It all looked like a bit of a joke, but I got ready anyway. Looking over at the nearby water I set my vario to - let's see, 5m elevation should do it.

I launch easily, turn and skim the sand dune and manage to go up... one whole metre! But, I slowly creep up to 100m, from where I can sneak over onto the mountain base. I slowly begin to snake my way up its sandy sides, maintaining a safe distance between me and it, just in case any rogue thermals want to smack me onto its side.

It wasn't long before I met up with the legend. Shunting its way through, the thermal was a beautiful and smooth 4m/s up. The legend in all its glory took me all the way up to cloudbase over 1000m above.

Beach to cloudbase, it was all true.

I bumped about cloudbase for a couple of hours and I headed up the coast for a few kilometres. When the wind is quite straight you can go 40km along the coast. This is when you take it all in. The mountain and landscape is shaded in tones of Mother Earth. As the sun tries to meet the horizon the mountain hues soften to pastel shades. The thermals loose their strength. Now is the time to become as close to a bird as is possible. I land along the sandy slope, take some photos and re-launch into the calm air. I skim along the surface hugging the mountain side and snake my way along like a sidewinder snake. I fly until dark.

I spent five months travelling and paragliding the mountains of South America. There are potentially thousands of launch sites and some magnificent flying. However, big mountains have big friends also called mountains; these get in your road when you are trying to do some serious long distance cross-country flying. What you need is a single mountain in an open savanahland... Manilla. I flew in five countries in South America but never saw a site anywhere as good as Manilla for cross-country flying. Well done guys, for winning the 2007 World Paragliding Championships to be held at Manilla.