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The craziest day of my life

Posted on December 09, 2013 in Phil Jennings   

So I have just returned from Peru where I was with fellow Parajet team pilot Glenn Tupper. Other than travelling around this fantastic country our mission was to fly one of the Seven Wonders of the World, Machu Picchu.

We arrived into the nearest town Santa Teresa late Monday evening after a 5 and a half hour drive from the mountain city Cusco. The original plan was to launch from a sports field in the town but when we arrived it was all fenced in and inaccessible. After a brief drive down the valley next to a rushing river we found a flat area that was perfect, so we waited for dark, set the alarm for 5 am and camped there overnight. Next morning we awoke to light rain so our first thoughts were this isn’t going to happen, but we got up and packed all the camping gear away hoping for it to improve. Sure enough by 6 it had stopped but then we could see that all the surrounding mountains were clagged in with thick cloud. Only thing we could do was wait, prepare all the equipment and check the carburation as we were at 4000 feet ASL.

By around 9 it was starting to look promising with low level cloud lifting and some of the peaks visible so we decided to go for it. Our concern was that during the day it was going to get very thermic and there was a good chance of rain in the evening as it was the rainy season. I launched first on the Zenith Polini 130 and 22GTR, followed by Glenn on the Zenith Polini 200 and 24GTX. We climbed to 8000’ over our launch site so could make an easy landing if we had any issues then headed off up the valley. We were following the Urubamba river and passed over the hydroelectric power station they have there at the foot of the towering Wayna Picchu peak. As we came round the final bend we saw it, there it was right in front of us the lost city of the Incas, Machu Picchu. It was an amazing to see this huge site just blended into the side of a mountain. To think it was all built by hand with no tools all the way up on top of a mountain is hard to comprehend. We flew back and forth along the valley for about 15 minutes getting some nice pictures and video for Glenns documentary, then headed back to the van in the valley. Once landed we packed up and headed further along the road to a thermal spring, this is where the day started to change!

We had just got out the van when a police 4x4 arrived and the very polite policemen along with a worker from the hydroelectric plant wanted to know if it was us that had just flown around Machu Picchu. Now at this point i’d like to add it wasn’t our intention to just turn up and guerrilla fly an area. Glenn had spoken with a contact from the nearby area of Urumbamba and his advice was we should be alright as long as we didn’t overfly the site, something we stuck to and stayed in the valley next to it. So the police refused to believe our innocence and asked that we lead the way to the station in Santa Teresa. It was on this journey we had the forethought to remove the memory cards from the camera, replacing them with clear ones and hide all the GoPro’s. It would of been a shame to loose all the great pictures after going this far.

We then spent the next few hours ‘assisting’ with their investigation while they waited for the other to come down from Machu Picchu to join us.

After many hours they had been though all our flying equipment and documented it all but more importantly seemed happy with the 2 empty cameras and an old GoPro that we found on the dash! Once this was sorted we then were asked to go to the police station at the top of Machu Picchu. This turned out to be a bigger adventure than we realised as once we got to the train stain at the bottom next to the hydroelectric plant it aspired we had missed the last train so the only thing was to hike the 2 hours to the top with the police and various witnesses! It was pouring with rain and starting to get dark when we stopped half way up under an old wooden shelter for a break, everyone was soaked but surprisingly cheerful considering it was us that had caused this. To my amazement they called over to a guy in a nearby hut and before i new what was happening we we all sharing a bottle of beer together!

We then walked the remaining hour to the top, signed a few statements and we were free to go. No fine, nothing, just 9 hours of wondering what may happen to us.

When we left the police station we saw the 3 witnesses who’d seen us fly. The bus driver spoke great English but the guide and archaeologist didn’t. We knew the guide had taken pictures of us as these were shown to the police so we jokingly asked if we could have a copy, so now fast forward 10 minutes, were all sat in a Chinese restaurant together eating, drinking beer and talking about paramotors, Machu Picchu, archaeology and photography. We gave the guide $50 for 120 pictures taken from an angle we could of not got and everyone was happy…..What a strange, strange day!

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