The unheralded Jalisco municipality of Zapotiltic will receive some unexpected international attention next month when it hosts one of six Paragliding Pre-World Cup Tour dates scheduled in the lead up to next year’s Paragliding World Cup.
More than 100 competitors from at least 13 nations will participate in the December 2-9 event that will lift off on the Cerro del Calaque.
Organizers hope to run a successful event that will provide an impetus for a bid to host a World Cup event in 2019.
Adolfo Toledo of Ciudad Guzman, Jalisco is one of eight Mexicans registered for next month’s competition.
Paragliders fly lightweight, free-flying, foot-launched glider aircraft with no rigid primary structure. Pilots sit in a harness suspended below a fabric wing comprising a large number of interconnected baffled cells.
Paragliding differs from hang gliding in that the craft typically weigh less than 50 pounds, can be carried in a backpack, and take less than ten minutes to set up and prepare to launch.
According to Miguel Gutiérrez, director of the event’s organizing committee, Zapotiltic has only recently been “discovered” as an ideal paragliding location. “The thermal conditions are almost always favorable and the wind blows in the right direction,” he said at a press conference to publicize the event this week.
Other popular sites in Jalisco for paragliders are Tapalpa, San Marcos Evangelista and Yelapa.
Zapotiltic is one of Jalisco’s smallest municipalities, with a population of just over 30,000, located a few miles south of Ciudad Guzman, about 90 minutes from Guadalajara.