Following on from my last posting, this time its good news and nice pictures. The good news came in the form of Rodrigo Manzan de Andrade. As I was leaving my room on the 19th July (morning after the nightmare day) by sheer chance I saw another guest carrying of all things a parachute rig to his car. This guy turned out to be an absolute life saver. I asked him if he could tell me the way to the DZ. We ended up having breakfast to-gether. After that we both checked out and I followed him in my car to the Parachute Centre.
Rodrigo was not only friendly, he spoke very good English and had actually worked for some time in the UK - He runs his own company called Lara and Associados in Sau Paulo now. When we got to the DZ which is huge -its the National Centre for Skydiving in Brazil, there is something like 14 skydive schools run here. They all share the aircraft, which are two Cessna Caravans running non stop. Rodreigo took me round and introduced me to his friends and all of the people you need to know, including the guy who owns the aircraft and seems to be the overall boss.
There is a real buzz about the place, there is lots of sports skydiving going on as well as tandems, there are shops where you can buy kit and clothing, lots of places to eat. It only operates at weekends so people make the most of their time here. Rodreigo and I did one jump to-gether just for fun and then we went our separate ways as far as jumping was concerned. I did a jump with some of the people I had been introduced to. Rodreigo had to leave at about 2.00 pm to see his young daughter and wife. But before he went he introduced me to even more people, some of which helped me later in the weekend.
One thing I have not mentioned is the weather, its fantastic, about 26 degrees C not a cloud in the sky. It is so nice to be warm again - hopefully I can leave my thermals in the case now.
As for the scenery, the land around is quite flat, its quite green considering there seems to be little rain. There are some large palm trees around the DZ hotel. I will fill you in on the city of Boituva on my next posting.
Back to the skydiving. I manged to get 6 jumps in over the weekend and really enjoyed them.
On Sunday morning before the jumping started a large hot air balloon was been inflated on the DZ. It was for a pleasure flight and not jumping (worst luck), but it was a really nice seen, so there are some pictures on the blog. One of the pictures is a group of four of us (Rodreigo is next to me in the Red jump suit).
I have attached some pictures I hope you like them. john 22/7
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