By Jorge Riviera
Foreword by Jarek Wieczorek

I live on a far away desert at the end of the world. So it was only natural that nobody believed me when I was telling stories of lush green valleys, dense forests covering mountain slopes, never ending high pastures, mighty vertical rock faces, tall wild peaks, and the emerald river below. But yes, there is a place like this and paragliding there is simply unforgettable. In June 2012 I gathered a group of thirteen adventurous pilots and off we went. We went to Slovenian Julian Alps. And flying there this season exceeded all my expectations. There were some personal bests. There were a few 100km flights. There were classic Slovenia - Italy - Slovenia out and return XC flights. There were Italian pizzas galore. I could write how amazing all of it was for pages but instead I will let one of the pilots from our group tell a story of one of his flights. For Jorge Rivera it was the very first chance to fly in Europe and in the Alps and this is how he saw it:

It was a total of 100 kilometers flying along high mountain ranges of which some rise over 2,500 meters in altitude with impressive and imposing rocky walls. A wonderful show that one can only see in great sport video documentaries.

For me flying my Avax XC3 from Kobala, through Kobarid and Stol, across the Italian border, and following these great mountains to Gemona and a return back, despite the sudden changes of the wind direction, was not very simple to achieve. I remember a single radio communication I had with my friend Jarek:

- How much altitude do you have? - He asked me while circling above me in a thermal at 2,200 meters on our way back toward Slovenia from Gemona, Italy.
- 1,900m, why? - I said.
- Let's cross! - He responded. - We can ride the higher mountains across the other valley. We must seize this opportunity. The conditions are allowing it...

I had a couple of seconds to make the decision. I looked with attention at my flightdeck to check if my Spot satellite communicator was working. Just in case of an unplanned landing.

The mountains we crossed were simply impressive as was yet another mountain range that ran from the other valley. From here you could see Triglav, Slovenia's highest mountain.

This long mountain massif stretches from the border with Austria in the north to Ljubljana and Maribor. It comprises the northern region of the country - the umbilical western Julian Alps with their highest peak Triglav of 2.864 meters of height. It is the national symbol of Slovenia.

After almost 5 hours of the flight I landed and the only thing I wanted was a beer: "Pivo prosim, very cold".

Excellent experience. As I would say "What an awesome flight!".

We had great time with everyone who came to Slovenia in 2012. Thank you for coming and for your enthusiasm. You are all invited to join us again in 2013.

You can watch excellent trip's video made by Dawn here.

A slideshow of the best photos is here and browsing trough the whole daily photoblog you can see how much fun everybody had.

For the coming season the dates of Slovenia 2013 - The Joy of XC - Paragliding Adventure Tour in The European Alps are set for 20-29 June. All pilots are welcome to join us. In 2013 we plan to visit the same sites as in 2012 (Stol, Kobala, Lijak) and may add a new site or two across the border in Austria. We are always looking for flying sites with the best possible XC weather of a day and the ones that work the best with our participants. For more information please contact:

• Jarek Wieczorek
tel. in the USA: (303) 800 6340
tel. in Chile: +56 9-8269-6562
website: www.antofaya.com
email: jarek@antofaya.com