Planes And Hills

Originally posted to El Cantar de la Lluvia on Thursday, November 16, 2006


Don Jano knows a great place to go for a bit of fun riding: the hills behind Lampa. I picked him up from work, and we headed over there.

The road passes behind SCL airport, the same place where, years ago, I used to hang out with friends to watch planes land.

If you stand very still after the plane passes, 10 seconds later or so you'll probably hear the sound made by the plane's generally invisible wingtip vortices, still twisting and writhing in the air above you. They sound like angry wind spirits, and if you tilt your head back, you can track their position by ear alone.



We carried on to Lampa, and found the way in.

There was a dry stream bed, and I debated whether to try to ride through it or not. It was U-shaped, with steep, rocky sides. I decided to ride through it, and on the way up the other side I lost my balance, and had to dump the bike.

Getting it out of there was a load of work. 15 minutes later I came back to where Jano was, and he filmed me going up and down a short slope.

And later, on our way home, we stopped to watch the planes come in.