Friday, October 12
    Today's morning is just as beautiful as the previous. I don't even know if they ever had any other kind of weather here. Knowledgeable regarding local conditions and girls, David states that during the past half year he's seen rain maybe twice. Local merchants are in a bustle readying their shops so as not to let even one tourist slip by are willing to lead customers, pleasantly, to their goods by the hand. They are, however, very sensitive to the tourists expression and are never insistent. One resolute gesture of refusal and the merchant vanishes from sight. Opening hours are, for us, somewhat shocking: 9 a.m. to midnight!



    Around nine again the first vehicles of today head out, which are free for every participant in the festival. Subsequent eventual rides up then must be paid for, but it is in no way a major expense. It's about 160 Czech Crowns per ride, which is a special price for festival participants. A normal tourist would pay about 100 Crowns more. It is useless to try and drive up in your own car. For one thing the rocky road is unsuitable for passenger cars and secondly you just won't make it past the guards at the gate to the national park. But the local vehicles shuttle back and forth reliably, and there are usually more than ten vehicles in transit. Some wild pilots, like for example the one on the left in the next picture, are able to make the trip four times a day.



    There is almost no wind on the starting ground today and its possible to choose freely. In contrast to yesterday the ceilings reach to "only" 2600 meters and the cloud bases on the shore around noon begin to form at low altitudes, just above 1000 meters.





    A fast motorboat leaves a frothing snake-like wake as it slaloms across the water's surface, and a hydroplane landed near the beach a short while ago. It calmly rocks on the waves, while overhead, paragliders perform their acrobatics. The hot-air balloon is nowhere to be seen at the moment, evidently unable to take off in this mid-day heat.

    Smiling girls from the Red Bull stall are running around the beach and giving out cold cans of "special energy drink" to pilots who have just landed. Yesterday I was told that if while landing you manage to roll in the sand, they give you two cans for extra strength. I couldn't resist the temptation today, and I must say, yes, it's true. But the fact that the beach sand acts like sandpaper on you during your somersault landing, my friends neglected to mention. But these are small things. Apparently in Afghanistan they're now pulling children out of the wreckage following the American bombing and Red Bull nowhere to be had ...



    The sun is beating down and the heat is maybe even worse than yesterday. Instead of the grilled corn, today I tried Turkish "Gözleme". Some local women have set up a field kitchen in the shade of the low trees, and while one makes the dough, the other two form it into round, thin pancakes. They don't however use our traditional dough rolling pin, but rather a long broom handle. A rolling pin is evidently too short for such a large pancake. A fourth woman then bakes the pancakes, which are about 40cm in diameter on a round grill, topped with vegetables and cheese, and then wraps it into the form of our pancakes. With every Gözleme you get an "Ayran" drink, which reminds me of goat's milk. The combination is very tasty, but I can't help but recall the deliciously spicy and five times cheaper, about 11 Crowns, pancake of the bus station vendor in Dalaman, which I stuffed myself with.





    In the late afternoon, the hot-air balloon is once again filled and moments later the MC cheers, "Bravo Viktor", as Viktor Prochazka goes up with the powered paraglider from his company, "WalkerJet". As the only representative in the area of powered paragliding, he has no competition here.



    After dark in the Cloud 9 bar, just like every night, three large screens light up, on which footage shot during the day by local cameramen is shown.



    As the evening wears on, more people than yesterday show up. It is Friday night and it's to be expected that tomorrow night, the next to last day of the festival, it will be even more crowded.