What a great journey!

Karen and I had a lot of fun. We got to see places we never thought we would visit. We were blessed with wonderful traveling companions, mostly good weather, beautiful vistas, and the opportunity of a lifetime.

I can easily recommend any of the places we visited to others (well, we were in French Guiana for only an hour, so I can’t say much about there).

Machu Picchu is remarkable. It is remote, which makes the journey there and back part of the adventure.

Rapu Nui (Easter Island) is an enigma. I believe it is an object lesson on population-induced environmental stress that we are ignoring, and will likely repeat with equally disastrous results on a much larger scale.

Buenos Aires is a beautiful city with much to offer. Staying in the Sofitel Hotel downtown gave us an opportunity to walk and enjoy being in the city. I hope Argentina can one day recover the prosperity they enjoyed prior to 1940.

Patagonia offered broad vistas across mountains and lakes and glaciers. The people were friendly, and the land provided unmatched opportunities to hike and explore. The wind was part of the challenge and helped make the area unique in our experience.

Santiago and the wine region of Chile provide the chance to enjoy a slower pace of traveling, as one wanders through the vineyards, sampling the goods and enjoying the food and scenery.

The high desert of Atacama is attractive because of its ruggedness. The arid region, with its reddish colored terrain looks otherworldly. For those who like the outdoors, it provides challenges unlike those found nearer home. I enjoyed the high altitude hikes along the ridges and through the canyon.

The fanciest hotel we stayed in was the Grand Hyatt in Santiago, Chile. The one I would most like to go back to is the Hotel Monasterio in Cuzco, Peru. The best entertainment was the tango show in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The best meal was the Brazilian steakhouse Porque, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The best man-made modern attraction was the bird sanctuary in Iguacu Falls, Brazil.

Over 38 days, I flew 13,000 nautical miles in 22 flights taking 51.2 hours, while burning 2,727 gallons of Jet A fuel. We spent 18.9 hours without seeing the ground, and flew 13 instrument approaches. We fought wind, light rain, clouds, confused controllers, broken credit card machines and non-functional printers. And, still had a great time.

Once again, I am thankful for the opportunity and glad to be home.

 

Posted from Mt Airy, North Carolina, United States.

When we were in Cartagena, Columbia we visited a old fort. Like many places, there were numerous vendors on the street, selling various items. One of the guys was selling Panama hats. I did not have a hat, but I really didn’t need one either. However, I decided to bargain with him for fun. When I got the price down to 1/3 of where we started, I bought myself a Panama hat.

On the flight out of Cartagena G wanted to get a picture of me flying the airplane with the hat. That started a tradition. Over the course of the journey I purchased hats in Columbia, Peru, Chile (twice), Argentina and the Bahamas. Plus, Thierry bought one at the winery outside of Santiago, Chile.

A couple of times, G saw a hat while we were touring and insisted that I try it on, “just to see.” I didn’t buy all of those.

A hat is practical in these climates, and it was fun to do, but there is no significance.

It’s always good to come home.

Things move fast in Wilmington. Touch down at 3:23 and take off at 4:02. Thirty-nine minutes to taxi in, clear Customs, fuel up, get a clearance, taxi out and take off. It doesn’t get any better.

We climbed to 20,000 feet for the short flight to Mount Airy. The only thing between us and home was a line of thunderstorms running from Hickory to Raleigh. Most of the front was below us, but there were some cumulonimbus towers over Winston and Greensboro that we had to work around.

The controller was cooperative, allowing us to stay at 20,000 feet until we were nearly over Mount Airy before descending. He handed us off to Atlanta who let us choose a route around the storms as we descended to clear air below the clouds.

Mount Airy was reporting a 7,000 foot ceiling and 10 mile visibility. One of the jets from Pike Electric was on the Customs ramp when we started up in Wilmington. Even though we took off first, they were faster than us and were lining up for runway 36. We were going to use runway 18, so we let them go ahead of us.

We touched down at 5:02 p.m. The flight from KILM to KMWK took 1.0 hours and we burned 65 gallons of Jet A. I taxied up to the fuel pumps and shut down, ending a great journey.

It’s time to go home.

The weather is not looking good for Thursday, so after a leisurely breakfast I asked Jay if he would mind flying out today. He was okay with that, so we quickly put things in motion to leave the Bahamas.

While Jay packed, I filed a flight plan, submitted my eAPIS (electronic manifest for the TSA), got a weather briefing, called customs, arranged transportation to the airport, texted Guillaume and then we checked out of the hotel. No sweat, we were gone in 30 minutes.

The people at the FBO were excellent. Our only delay was that they could not find the fueling ticket. Once that was located, we were quickly on our way. They took care of the outbound forms and we took off at 1:10 in the afternoon.

After maneuvering around the island following takeoff, our route was nearly direct to Wilmington. It’s almost due north, over several hundred miles of ocean. There is a lot of air traffic in that area, mostly airliners. We dodged around one patch of towering clouds, but other than that it was a straight shot. Naturally, we flew into the wind, so we were slowed a little.

It was good to see the U.S. coastline. Not only was it the United States, but it was North Carolina!

The flight from MYNN to KILM took 2.2 hours and used 118 gallons of fuel at 31,000 feet. We landed at 3:23, following the visual approach to runway 24.

The Customs folks and FBO at Wilmington were great. The fueling guy parked us and took our fuel order. Two Customs agents came to the aircraft with their electronic sniffer. We left them with the plane and went inside, filled out one form, answered two questions and went back to the airplane, where fueling had been completed. We paid the bill and loaded up for the last flight. It could not have been easier or faster.

 

Posted from Wilmington, North Carolina, United States.

We couldn’t shake the headwind, no matter what altitude we tried. We started at 30,000 feet, later asked for 26,000, and finally 22,000 – all to no avail. We couldn’t get less than 35 knots. Oh, well. Some days are like that. You just get comfortable and keep flying.

The flight from MBPV to MYNN was 1.6 hours and required 100 gallons of Jet A fuel.

The lady at Nassau Approach was sharp. She must have had fifty aircraft in her airspace. She was constantly calling traffic, lining us up, and handing us off to Nassau Tower. She brought us in across the island. We had a great view of the Atlantis resort, where Karen and her bunch will be staying.

Approach made us fourth in line to land, behind a Boeing 737. Once the jet passed, we turned to line up for Runway 14. Tower cleared us to land, then she cleared another aircraft to take off in front of us. That’s not unusual and helps to keep traffic moving. The surprise was she cleared another aircraft to depart from midfield when we were on short final. When we asked, she told us we were still cleared to land and to “continue approach”. She obviously had done this before. Like her colleague on Approach, she was sharp.

The staff at Executive Flight Support FBO was excellent. There was lots of activity and they were efficient in moving luggage and airplanes where they needed to be. The customs lady was friendly.

We said goodbye to Guillaume Fabry, our Journey Director from Air Journey. He did an amazing job of making everything wonderful. He worked long hours doing all of the flight planning, working with the hotels and tour companies, and seeing to the needs (wants) of the four of us on the trip. I can’t imaging anyone doing a better job than what he did. THANK YOU G!

Karen and I got to Atlantis first. We checked in for her and her sister, and I waited in the lobby for them to arrive from the airport. When they got off the bus, I told them I was the WalMart greeter and “Welcome to the Bahamas”.

Jay surprised Kathy and the girls when he walked up to them at the gate in the Atlanta airport. By chance, his flight was the same as theirs to Nassau. Everyone was finally together.

Atlantis did not have a room for us, so Jay and I ended up next door at the Riu Palace. It’s probably better suited to 20 somethings than 50 somethings who have been on the road for forty days. But, it is great to see Jay again and spend some time in sun goofing off.

Another early morning departure from the hotel. We are planning on meeting Karen’s sister and her two nieces and Jay in Nassau around 1:30 this afternoon, so we were up at 5:15. The hotel staff doesn’t show up until 7:00, so we loaded the bags in the taxi and departed. When we got to Provo, I realized I still had the room key in my pocket. Oops!

The headwinds made it a slow flight. We were 3.5 hours from TGPY to MBPV, starting at 30,000 feet and working our way down to 26,000 in search of lower winds. We burned 197 gallons of fuel before completing the visual approach to runway 10.

About an hour after takeoff, we entered San Juan airspace. For the first time in more than a month, we heard the familiar voices of U.S. trained controllers. San Juan turned us over to Miami. It is amazing how busy it gets with all of the flights. They have the commercial traffic, plus the business aircraft and all of the smaller ones that constantly fly from one island to another.

We flew over the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. It is a 1,000 foot diameter radio telescope installed between some mountains. The dish has been in several movies, including one or two Bond films.

The folks at Provo Air Center do a great job. They parked us amidst the garden of corporate jets and quickly fueled us. There was no hassle with customs since we were just re-fueling and continuing on, out of the country. I know they are the only FBO on the field, but they don’t act like it.

Today has been quiet and relaxing. With the time change, I woke up around 5:00 a.m. It was still dark, but I could hear the surf. Not a bad way to start the day.

The resort is nice. It only has 16 rooms. Each room is a cabana on the hillside overlooking (through the trees) the ocean. There is a small manmade beach along the hotel property. It’s not like Myrtle Beach, but it gives you access to the ocean and the warm water.

Jay is on Spring Break from college. He is going to take a commercial flight to Nassau and meet us there tomorrow. I will delay my return to Mount Airy until Thursday so we can spend a couple of days in the Bahamas. He will fly back with me, and Karen will take the commercial flight she already has booked for Friday. She and her sister and nieces will have a good time at Atlantis. Jay and I will find a hotel nearby and figure out something to do.

G arranged a special dinner for us on the last night. The hotel set up a table on the beach between the tree line and the dining area. We had candles (that we supplemented with our iPhones so we could read the menus), a little wine and a very good meal. The chef is from southern Italy and came by several times to make sure everything was good.

We said goodbye to Howard and Cherine. We will be leaving early going to Nassau. They will depart at a more reasonable hour for Saint Martin. They are amazing folks. Traveling with them was a true pleasure.

The final flight of the day was a long one, 3.1 hours from SOCA to TGPY. We were only on the ground an hour, not enough time for the clouds to find somewhere else to be.

The French controller was from Marseilles, in southern France. G was born there. He was in heaven talking to this guy. Most importantly, the controller was cooperative. We took off to the east. Our route called for us to turn to the west, right into a large ugly cloud. We told him we were going northeast. He said okay, but turn west as soon as we could.

We never did turn west. He told us we had to stay out of the military restricted area that went up to 24,500 feet. We couldn’t climb that fast. He said he would contact the military guys and tell them we were forced into it by weather, then he gave us a new waypoint that was out of the area. Good guy!

Once we were clear of French Guiana, the clouds left us and we motored along at 30,000 feet.

The winds worked against us (again), making our arrival after sundown in Grenada. The good part was a tremendous sunset from 20,000 feet. Once again, my photographs don’t do it justice.

The night visual approach to runway 10 was pretty. Even the landing wasn’t too bad. After burning 159 gallons of Jet A, we touched down at 6:44, having flown 2,100 miles in three legs since our takeoff in Brazil at 7:58 this morning.

The second flight of the day (SBBE to SOCA) was only 1.7 hours, but it was interesting. The rain was falling as we taxied out behind an airliner. We flew the departure from Belem through the clouds to 30,000 feet.

Our route took us north of the equator at the mouth of the Amazon River. G and I tried to capture a photograph of our position exactly as we crossed 0° Latitude. He won with a photo that showed us at S 00° 00.01′. The best I could do was .03′. The Amazon flows brown into the ocean. It is over fifty miles wide. What a river!

G thought he was back at home when we called the controller in French Guiana. They spoke back and forth in French. At one point, he turned to tell me something and spoke in French. I just shook my head and said, “English please”. It was a good thing he was schmoozing them, because the weather was bad and we needed their help on the approach.

Approach told us that a storm passed and was a few miles west of the airport. There were towering cumulonimbus clouds in all quadrants and rain over the final approach fix for the ILS Runway 08 approach. The controller said visibility was good at the airport and offered us direct to the VOR, which was located on the field. She thought we would fly outbound from there, but we got a glimpse of the runway and told her we would take a visual approach.

We dodged the clouds, keeping the runway in sight and lined up to land. There was a Cessna 152 doing practice landings on the runway. I told G I wasn’t going around and slowed down as much as I could to allow the 152 to take off again. The tower cleared us to land about a ¼ mile from the end of the runway. We touched down having used 87 gallons of fuel.

Howard was about 20 minutes behind us. He got stuck on the ground in Belem waiting for the rain to abate. Right after we left the bottom fell out and it was raining so hard he couldn’t see to taxi. Then, he got routed through the storm over the final approach fix and got pounded.

Two down, one to go for the day.

For the first time in a long while, I was awakened by the klaxon of the iPhone alarm. The clock read 5:00 a.m. Karen and I are getting pretty good at this packing thing, so we were ready to go at six.

All of the cabs are small, so it takes two of them to move the five of us and our luggage. The traffic was light, but there were a surprising number of people up and about.

Getting out of a Brazilian airport is challenging. They don’t have FBOs, so you have to walk from office to office to find the person who can print your bill and accept your payment, and then go find the people who will file your flight plan and the group who will show you the weather. It is a frustrating process that is made worse because they won’t accept U.S. dollars and sometimes credit cards. We ran into that this morning. The credit card machine was broken, so we had to search out a place to change U.S. dollars for Brazilian Reals. It’s not difficult to do, but it wrecks any schedule you might have had.

The flight from SBSV to SBBE was 3.4 hours at 30,000 feet and requiring 181 gallons of fuel. We spent 1.8 hours either inside of, or on top of the clouds, not seeing the ground. The ILS Runway 06 approach brought us through the clouds into Belem.

Leg one of three was complete.

This morning’s excursion was a three hour walking tour of the old part of the city. Simone was our guide. She was good at providing the background and history as we moved through the various areas.

This is a city of 3 million people that I had never heard of before. There is a lot of construction going on and there are hundreds of high-rise buildings. Simone said most of the employment was centered around petro-chemicals. Just looking around, it seems there must be much more than that. This appears to be a thriving place.

The Portugese settled Brazil reluctantly and only to keep their “claim” alive. Brazil did not have the gold and silver that the Spanish found in western South America, so it didn’t attract interest like the other countries. It did have wood, and that was the major export for many years. Today, we know that there is an abundance of natural resources, including gold, gemstones, oil and minerals that the country is developing.

Back to the city… Many of the buildings in the old city are painted in bright pastel colors. Since the exterior wall of one building butts up against the exterior wall of its neighbor, the colors show the extent of a person’s property. It evolved into an address system of sorts, in that people would say “Come to the yellow house off the main square”. My pictures don’t do justice to the way the buildings look against the bright blue sky.

More than 80% of the population in this part of Brazil is of African heritage. Portugal brought between 4.5 and 8 million slaves from Africa to build the forts, cut the trees, dig the mines and raise the sugarcane. Brazil was the last country to abolish slavery in the 1880′s.

Some of the stores and tourist attractions have local women dressed up in the style of the slaves that worked in the homes. They wear long dresses with big hoops to mimic the style of Portugese court in Lisbon. The only native part of their dress is a turban of sorts that they wear on their head.

During the tour, the guide showed us the statue of a bishop. He had been in Salvador for many years and was going home to Portugal. His ship decided to stop at a nearby island for fresh water before they set out across the Atlantic. The only problem was, the island was inhabited by cannibals and they ate the bishop and the captain of the ship. Now, they knew the cannibals lived on the island, so I can’t figure why they would have taken the chance. At least he got a statue.

Karen and I had a dish called Shrimp Bobo for lunch. It was a bright yellow color and was served hot. Colorful and tasty – a nice combination.

We have a long way to go tomorrow and will spend the entire day in the airplane.

The weather continued to plague us with rain and low ceilings. Fortunately (ha, ha), the  Brazilians took so long to collect our payments, give us a weather briefing and file our flight plans that the clouds were up to 1,500 feet when we FINALLY took off.

We departed from runway 20 right, headed straight for Sugarloaf mountain. Karen and G took pictures and the mountain doesn’t look as big in their pictures as it did in my windshield. It was fun turning left and flying around the mountain while we climbed out. Karen got a good picture of Sugarloaf with Cococabana Beach in the background.

We climbed through the clouds, finally reaching the tops around 20,000 feet. We kept going to 31,000 where we leveled off for the next two hours.

Refueling at Salvador was the best we have had the entire journey. This guy knows his job and seems to take pride in doing it. The taxi driver from the airport to the hotel is another story. This guy had a grim expression the whole trip. He kept changing lanes trying to go faster. I’m not sure it got us there any faster. He finally dumped us out at the wrong door for the hotel, but we found the right place.

The Convento de Carmo Hotel is converted convent. It seems that convents could be for monks, too. I always thought only women were in convents. It’s a nice place with wide stone stairways and rooms with high ceilings. The pool is round and is located in the middle of the courtyard. It seems like a funny place for it, but maybe they didn’t have anywhere else.

Somebody is having a wedding at the hotel on Saturday. They have taken over nearly all of the hotel. There are a bunch of construction workers running around, that’s why the main entrance was closed when we came in. It should be quite a show.

Low clouds and dark skies greeted us at breakfast this morning. But, it is going to take more than a little rain to stop the intrepid travelers.

Our guide, Rachel took us on a van tour of the city. Clouds were covering the Christ the Redeemer statue (the one Karen saw during our approach), so she took us to Sugarloaf first.

Sugarloaf is the mountain off the end of the runway. It is more than 1,300 feet above sea level. A hundred years ago, someone installed a cable car that takes tourists to the top. The cables are in two sections, so you stop at the mid-point and change cars. Naturally, both stops provide numerous opportunities to part with your cash in exchange for food, t-shirts and other paraphernalia.

The views are great. You can see Cococabana Beach and Ipanema Beach on the ocean side, and the city on the harbor side. We got some good pictures.

We watched several airliners take off from the airport where we landed. The runway is about the size of the one in Mount Airy, so they make sure they don’t wasted any of it. They line up on the very end, near where it drops off into the water. We could see the spray from the bay when the jets applied full power for takeoff. They would climb straight for Sugarloaf and then turn to their left, veering around the mountain. For a pilot, it was neat to watch.

It was raining by the time we got down from the mountain and the clouds never did allow us to see the statue. We continued our tour through the city. Rio in the rain is a dirty and poor place. The people are friendly, but few speak English, or even Spanish. Rachel told us that the public schools do not teach foreign languages. If you want to learn one, you have to pay for lessons at a language school, or go to a private school.

One of the places we passed was the avenue where they have the Carnival parade. There are 12 samba schools that train for 8 months to compete in the parade. There are 4,000 to 5,000 people in each of the schools. This parade is a big deal. It runs two nights, starting at 8:00 in the evening and going until 6:00 the next morning. Six of the schools parade each night. Each one takes more than an hour to pass through the avenue. This is set up like a long stadium, with concrete bleachers lining both sides. There are box seats and enclosed “sky boxes” that companies use to entertain customers.

We also visited the Catholic Cathedral. We have seen a lot of traditional cathedrals, but this one is cone shaped and made of concrete. It looks almost like a pyramid. You go through the huge doors and your eyes are drawn up to the ceiling by the magnificent stained glass panels that run from the floor to the roof, hundreds of feet above. The place seats 10,000 for services. There is a huge volume of space that makes you feel insignificant as you stand near the center and look up.

Dinner was at Porcoa. This place is fabulous! There is a buffet with around 100 items, including salad stuff and sushi. But, the best part is the meat. They have guys who come to your table with a skewer that has one cut of meat on it and thinly slice it right onto your plate. One has sirloin, another prime rib, another filet. Others have chicken or pork or flank steak. They keep coming until you turn over your little medallion that has a red stop sign on it. This is followed up with a dessert called the Chocolate Avalanche. It is a tall sundae glass that has the outside covered with chocolate syrup and coated with chopped nuts. Inside the glass is vanilla ice cream topped with whipped cream and a cherry. What a meal!

Our hotel is one of those ultra modern places, with (in my view) extreme euro-styling. All of the furniture looks like it was built for aliens with limbs shaped differently from ours. When you get off the elevator on your floor you face a series of dark brown walls with key card locks and a lighted stripe on the floor at the base of the walls. It reminds me of a scene from a British movie in the 60′s where they were trying to show the despair caused by the depersonalization of society. Anyway, its different. The room number is not on the wall, but embedded in the lighted stripe. For those of us from Surry County, it can take a while to figure out where we are supposed to go.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAY!

We’re in Rio baby!

The weather was a concern as we packed for departure. With a 300 foot ceiling in Iguacu Falls, a large cold front with thunderstorm activity and forecast close-to-minimums ceiling in Rio, the day was not looking like a great time to fly. But, it took us so long to get our flight plans filed and pay the fees that the weather began to clear at the Falls.

We finally got off the ground at SBFI at one minute before 11. Our route took us almost due east, along the border with Argentina before we turned to the north. The good news was the 50+ knot tailwind at 31,000 feet. After burning 120 gallons of fuel, we landed at SBRJ at 1:21 p.m.

We spent about an hour and a half in the clouds. Our northeastern routing had us several miles off the coast, which was good, because there was thunderstorm activity inland.

One of the things I miss most when flying outside of the U.S. is the Nexrad weather radar downlink that shows in the cockpit. Ordinarily, its not too bad since I have an onboard weather radar. However, when I turned it on for this flight, I got nothing. The little wand swept back and forth across the screen, but didn’t paint anything. G and I tried everything we could think of with no success. Its like I always say, “The technology will screw you every time.” Howard was 40 miles behind us, so we called him and he would relay news of anything significant he saw coming up. Fortunately, there wasn’t much going on along our route, just a lot of clouds.

Based on the volume of conversation in Portugese, the controllers were fairly busy. Their English phrasing was not the best and they often gave us information in an unexpected order, but we managed to find the airport.

We flew the RNAV D Rwy 02R approach into Santos Dumont. It’s an interesting little approach that winds you around the mountains until you can see the runway over the buildings. At that point you are abeam the end of the runway and have to fly a big arc along the shoreline, as you descend to line up for landing. We got a great view of the marina and looked up at Sugarloaf, the mountain with a cable car going up to it that is off the end of the runway. The pictures we took during the approach don’t do justice to what we saw from inside the cockpit.

Rio is famous for the large Christ the Redeemer statue that is atop one of the mountains overlooking the city. The approach takes us low, around the mountains. Karen was sitting in the back of the airplane and said she looked up and saw Jesus during the approach.

We are staying at the Hotel Fasano. It is across the road from the beach, so we have a good view of the sand and the water. They have a pool and a lunch bar on the top floor.

The day started and ended with clouds, but was pleasant for our hike to the falls and through the bird park.

We took the trail down to the base of the falls on the Brazilian side. They have built walkways out over the rocks that allow you to get a good view of the water. The spray coats parts of the walkway, making it slick. There were two bus loads of other tourists that created a crowd.

The best part is the elevator that takes you back to the top. It is supposed to be a “scenic” ride, but you are crammed in so tight you can’t really see anything.

After seeing the falls, we took the bus to the entrance of the park and walked to the bird park. There, you wander the trails through the woods and look at the tropical birds they have in cages. There are hundreds of birds in the park. You can go into the larger cages where they have dozens of birds together. We saw lots of parrots and macaws, plus toucans, swans, flamingos and a harpy eagle. That eagle is big. Females in the wild are big enough to hunt monkeys.

At the end there was a macaw we could hold. Macaws like to eat buttons and hats, so we had to be careful. G lost the buttons on his shirt and the bird chewed on my hat before I gave him back to the handler.

We were going to take the boat ride to the bottom of the falls in the afternoon, but an intense storm came in, making it cold with rain and lightening. It rained all day after lunch.

The hotel is “infested” with coatis. They are animals that look like raccoons, only longer and skinnier with long tails. They are certainly friendlier than our raccoons. They wander around the hotel grounds looking for bugs and people food. Every now and then, the waiters will have to chase one away from the tables where the people are eating.

Thanks Bryan for repairing the map feature on the web site!

Welcome to Brazil!

The flight today was pretty good. The first 50 minutes were spent in the clouds getting bounced around. Karen wasn’t too crazy about that part, but we finally flew out of the clouds and things settled down.

Our route took us out of Argentina, across Uruguay, back into Argentina, in and out of Paraguay, and finally across the river into Brazil. Argentina has an airport on their side of the river and it would be easy to confuse the two and land in the wrong country. Not good since we worked real hard to get out of Argentina earlier this morning.

We flew from SADF to SBFI in 2 hours and 2 minutes. We took off under overcast skies and landed in bright sunshine. The controller allowed us to circle the falls at 4,000 feet before we landed. Karen got some good pictures.

Howard and Cherine arrived about thirty minutes after we did. They were delayed again on the ground in Buenos Aires. Apparently, two airplanes of the same type flying the same route really confuses the controllers. Since I always go first, Howard seems to pay the price for the confusion.

Clearing customs wasn’t bad here. It took a good while to do the paperwork, but the inspections weren’t excessive and the people were friendly.

For the first time, I feel truly lost when trying to speak to someone. I don’t speak any Portuguese (not even bathroom and beer) and they are more likely to speak English to you than Spanish. I have been told that they consider it an insult if you speak Spanish, so I stick to English.

Our hotel is in the middle of the national park that surrounds the falls. It is operated by the Orient Express group and is very nice. Before dinner tonight, we took a walk down a path toward the falls. We’ll go farther down tomorrow, plus we are taking a boat ride to the bottom of the falls in the afternoon. G says we are unlikely to stay dry.

Today we were on our own with no excursions planned. Karen and I walked to a shopping area a few blocks from the hotel. This area is centered around Florida Street and runs for about a mile across more than five blocks. There are clothing, cell phone and leather goods shops lining the street, along with a couple of banks and at least one mall.

The mall is Pacific Gallery and you could hardly tell it from a fancy up-scale place in the States (except everyone is speaking Spanish). The shops are mostly clothing, like Nike, Adidas, Timberline, Ralph Lauren, etc… with what seemed like a large number of cosmetics places. Not as many shoe stores as we see at home, but all geared to the latest fashion trends.

We passed another street character on Florida Street. This one was posing as the Invisible Man. His (or her, I couldn’t tell) head was hidden in the buttoned up shirt collar and they had a cleverly designed hat and sunglasses mounted above the shirt and jacket.

On our way to meet the others for lunch, I saw a hat in the window of a leather shop. After calling to another of their stores, they found the right size and I now have an Argentine  hat for tomorrow’s flight. I also got a leather belt that I have been eyeing since Atacama.

Our group met for lunch at a steak place. G and Michael each had a monster bone-in rib eye. The steaks were pretty good, but not nearly as good as the dockside restaurant yesterday.

Thierry left yesterday and Michael leaves tonight. We will be back to the original five – Howard, Cherine, Karen, John and G.

Sorry, the only pictures are of the invisible man and a clock tower and a park we walked through going to and from the shopping area.

We took a van tour of the city this morning. Roberto was our excellent guide. He has traveled extensively and seems to truly know his home city.

It is a beautiful day, with clear skies and mild temperatures. The latitude is about the same as at home in North Carolina.

We drove through various sections of the city with Roberto telling us about the history. There is a very significant French influence. He said that one section was “designed by the French, built by the Italians and inhabited by Spaniards.” Prior to the second World War, this was referred to as the Paris of South America, sporting wide tree-lined boulevards with buildings that make you think you are in Europe.

We visited a huge sculpture made out of bright metal (aluminum?). It is a flower that opens in the morning and closes at night. We also visited a large cemetery where everyone is laid to rest in mausoleums. This place is like a city, with streets and alleys, all lined with dead people (well, at least their final resting places).

Roberto pointed out several of the historical families who had shaped Argentine history, including Evita Peron. Apparently, she was such a polarizing figure (and still is) her body was moved all around the world.

We walked through La Boca, a tenement neighborhood that today boasts artists, tango cafes and tourist kiosks. I never thought there was an employment opportunity in dressing in a costume, standing on the street and having people pay you to take their picture with you, but there is. We have seen various characters in the larger cities everywhere we have been. Today, the characters were tango dancers. G is a handsome fellow, so the woman grabbed him and we got his picture. Then, he thought it would be good to stick her with me!

The guide left us at a great dockside restaurant for lunch, which was fantastic.

Tonight was our tango excursion. We left the hotel at 8:30 and went to another hotel that  has a tango performance. It’s sort of like the Barn Dinner Theater except in Spanish with better food and sexier women. It is a small place, seating about 75 people at very small tables.

The ambiance is designed to be like the 1920′s and 30′s. You aren’t allowed to smoke, but they pump in artificial smoke during the performance to add to the realism. The dancers and the band are very good. Following a good dinner, they put on a show for about an hour and fifteen minutes. It was one of the best things we have done on the trip.

Another new country!

You would think getting into a country is the most difficult part, but sometimes it is just as tough to leave. My aircraft manifest showed me, Karen and Guillaume coming into Chile. That’s great except G flew out commercial and Thierry came in commercial and was leaving on my plane. They are both on French passports and I thought it was going to work, but we got caught at the last minute. This forced a delay as the papers were re-typed and stamped.

When we came into the country we paid a fee to “import” our aircraft. They gave us a receipt and said “DO NOT LOSE THIS PAPER”. Well, Howard couldn’t find his and the guy did not have a sense of humor. After a lot of discussion, we finally called the folks at the point of entry in Calama and got them to fax a copy to our new friend in Puerto Montt.

We took off from SCTE at 12:59 for our 800+ mile flight to San Fernando airport on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. Two hours and forty-nine minutes later we touched down at SADF, burning 153 gallons of fuel. We had a great flight – blue skies and tailwinds the whole way. Karen even slept.

Clearing customs was a circus. Two ladies came out to inspect the plane and insisted on poking into everything, including the survival equipment. They forced us to bring all of the bags inside, even the ones we were leaving on the plane. We ran them through the xray machine and then took them back outside. Oh well, at least the “rules” were satisfied.

The gyro on Howard’s airplane quit working a couple of flights back. He has been hand flying the last several legs. He and Thierry worked feverishly between his mechanic in the States, the maintenance guy at Socata and a repair station here at SADF to have them ready to fix the problem. With a couple of hours of explanation and translation, they removed the defective unit, tested it on their workbench and said they could repair it. We’ll see if it is ready for our flight on Sunday.

Cherine Janzen and Guillaume Fabry were waiting for us at the hotel. They flew in commercial earlier in the day. Michael Janzen and Thierry Pouille will leave us soon and return to the States.

The Sofitel Buenos Aires hotel is fabulous. The room is good and the Kobe beef I had for dinner is wonderful.

Today, we took a van tour through the Vicente Perez Rosales National Park. Once the clouds lifted we could see the snow-covered top of the volcano.

This climate is similar to home, although the guide said it was much like northern Oregon and Washington. We walked through a forest with real trees (as opposed to wind torn mesquite) and moss and creeks.

We took a boat ride around the Todos al Santos Lake. There is a small fish camp on the opposite shore where we had lunch. The owner hunts wild boar and catches fish for the restaurant and his wife does the cooking. I had the boar and Karen had trout. Both were very good, but Karen’s serving of trout was bigger than my portion of boar. After the meal, the owner gave us a ride in his boat back to the launch ramp where we were parked.

Tonight, we walked downtown to eat at Los Brazos. They have a great meat platter with sausages, ribeye steak, pork chop and french fries. Those were the first fries we’ve had since leaving home. We followed up the large, late-in-the-evening (again!) meal with a tasty serving of gelato (Italian ice cream) from a nearby restaurant with great desserts.

After less than an hour on the ground in Balmaceda, we fired up our turbine and staggered out to the runway. The wind was stronger than ever and it had a noticeable impact on the handling of the airplane.

The one hour and nine minute flight from SCBA to SCTE required 70 gallons of fuel and we cruised at 30,000 feet.

There was some pretty scenery when we could see through the clouds. We flew right along the ridge of the Andes Mountains and were able to look into Chile and Argentina. There are some impressive mountains with glaciers and beautiful lakes along the route.

The wind calmed as we flew north. Our approach into Puerto Montt was over the sound to enter a left downwind for the visual approach to runway 17. With only an 8 knot wind, this landing was much better than the previous one.

Our handler guided us to a spot in parking area 9 where we shut down and waited for Howard to arrive. About 40 minutes later he comes into view and parks next to us.

We were soon loaded into the van and off to the Hotel Patagonica in downtown Puerto Varas. The hotel is nice and our room has a great view over the lake to the volcano. The nicest part was the blinds we pulled over the windows so we could get a quiet night’s sleep.

No one got any sleep the last night at Patagonia Camp. The wind decided to really blow. They don’t have a wind gauge, but based on the pounding and flapping of the fabric covering the yurt, it was gusting over 50 miles per hour. I got three hours sleep and then a particularly hard gust woke me at 4:00 a.m. I never got back to sleep after that.

After a bleary-eyed breakfast, it took us an hour and a half to drive from Patagonia Camp to the airport in Puerto Natales.

There is no fuel at Puerto Natales which forced us to make an intermediate stop before Puerto Montt. There aren’t many airports with instrument approaches, so our choices were limited. We were headed north to Balmaceda, but Howard didn’t think he had enough fuel to get there, so he was going south to Punta Arenas. The clouds weren’t as much of a problem as the wind. It was 30 gusting to 42 in Puerto Natales and was forecast to be 50 knots in Punta Arenas and 20 knots in Balmaceda.

There were four guys working in the tower at SCNT. We went up into the cab and talked to them to get the latest weather and file our flight plans. Their English was minimal, but they were friendly.

The flight from SCNT to SCBA was 1 hour and 33 minutes. We burned 77 gallons of fuel flying at 30,000 feet. They gave us a visual approach to runway 27 behind an arriving airliner. The first weather report had the wind from 310° at 18 knots. Later it was 220° at 28. When we were on final, she said it was 320° at 37 – fifty degrees off the runway heading.

Okay, I like a challenge as much as the next person, but I could have done without this. The landing was not memorable in a positive sense. I did my best to save them some money on runway maintenance by only using the left side of the runway, and with the help of the wind, I only put one wheel at a time on the pavement.

We wallowed in the wind as we taxied to gate number three (2 down from the Boeing). There was no jetway at this position, which was a good thing since I just wanted some fuel and we have our own stairs to get from the airplane to the ground.

Today we did a 5½ mile hike, up hill, into a 60 mph breeze. I guess technically it was a walk in the park (Torres de Paine National Park), but not quite the way we normally mean that phrase.

Karen said this one tested her endurance, but she did well. She was glad to see the van at the 4½ mile point and took advantage of the ride to the end of the trail. She is turning into a hiking machine!

We stopped a couple of times on the way to the park. Once was overlooking a hotel on an island in a lake with the mountains in the background. I wouldn’t want to live there in winter, but it was a tremendous view.

Lolo joined us to be our second guide. That made seven of us hiking across the hills. Our goal was a cave that had been inhabited thousands of years ago. Since then, the roof has collapsed, leaving it as more of a dent in the side of the mountain.

The area is home to many guanacos. They are cousins to the llama and alpaca, and the camel. They roam free and aren’t too bothered by humans. We couldn’t touch them, but getting good photos was easy.

We also found the remains of many guanacos. They are hunted by pumas who have learned to use the fence in their hunting. The guanacos can’t see the fence at night when the pumas hunt. The big cats chase the guanacos who run into the fence and become a tasty dinner for the puma.

The climb through the wind was worth it. On the wall of the cave are the remains of paintings showing a hand and figures that look like indigenous animals. The red paint has faded, but it is neat to think that 6,000 years ago someone stood there and bragged about hunting success through these primitive paintings.

After our “stroll through the park” we had lunch near a waterfall looking out at the mountains. It was a beautiful setting and the hotel did another good job of preparing the meals.

The ride back required two hours of bouncing around inside the van, but it beats walking!

Torres de Paine is a national park near the camp. It is more than a quarter of a million acres with rivers, mountains, glaciers, lakes and foothills. It is beautiful, but rugged.

We departed the camp at 9:45, headed for a trailhead inside the park. We stopped several times for photos of the striking scenery before entering the park. The rivers are different colors depending on whether you see them when they are close to the glaciers or later, after they have filtered through the many lakes in the region. The glacial sediment makes the water an opaque grey. As the minerals and sediments fall out the water becomes crystal clear and you can see the bottom.

The mountains that are the principle features of the park are a combination of basalt, granite and sedimentary rocks. The granite is the lightest colored stone and is found mostly at the top of a couple of the peaks.

The van dropped us off at the base of one of the surrounding hills and we began our hike by starting uphill. Karen’s shorter legs offer her a challenge greater than that experienced by the others in the group, but she did real well. We hiked for more than two hours. Each time we thought we had reached a place with a good view we would climb to the top of the next hill and it was even better.

Did I mention it was windy? At the highest point of the hike I climbed up on a rock above the trail and braced myself. The wind was blowing at more than 50 miles an hour and was whipping my jacket violently. As we hiked, we would alternately be hit by the wind and then hidden safely behind boulders.

After four miles, we met the van and traveled to a ranger station to have lunch. The hotel had provided nice meals that the guide retrieved from a cooler. We had a picnic by a lake and were entertained by two black necked swans. Our table was in the lee of the building so we had a respite from the wind. It was very pleasant.

The afternoon excitement was provided by a boat cruise to the base of the Grey Glacier. We checked in at the Grey Hotel, took our van to a parking lot near the lake and hiked (of course) to the embarkation point. Karen wasn’t too wild about the swinging bridge with the warning about no more than six people at a time.

There is a large expanse of beach adjacent to the lake, but it is made up of crushed stone instead of sand. We put on life jackets and boarded the motorboat for the ride to the “real” boat. We were going into the wind and there were substantial waves, with whitecaps, throwing spray over the boat and passengers on the upper deck. It took an hour to cruise the length of the lake to get to the glacier. As we approached, there were icebergs floating in the water.

The compressed ice of the glacier has a unique shade of blue. I tried to capture it in photographs, but shooting into the afternoon sun made it difficult. The glacier is impressive. It is rugged and dirty on top and brilliant white and blue on the face.

The trip back to the beach seemed slow, even though we were going with the wind. The waves continued to challenge the boat, but the spray was much less than before. Once we got close to the dock we had only to take another short motorboat ride and a quick hike over the swinging bridge back to the van before being on our way back to camp.

Another good day.

We loaded up the 10,000 bags that we brought from the airplane and headed out from the hotel to Patagonia Camp. Our plan was to stop by the airport and leave most of those bags in the plane. Unfortunately, since they don’t have flights in every day, the airport gate was closed. So, we took EVERYTHING to the mountains. At least we are prepared if we decide to swim in the 40° water or wear short sleeve shirts as we wander around outside in the 30 mph wind.

The roads are better in this part of Chile. They are gravel, but without the Volkswagon-sized holes found in other parts of the country.

We stopped at Milodon Cave, a large cave created by erosion when the glacier retreated. The name comes from a large herbivore whose remains were found in and around the cave.

Our guide is Xavier (I think, we call him “Chevy”). For the last 18 years he spends six months in Chile and six months in Spain, guiding tourists around the mountains. He was a science teacher and astrophysicist who decided he didn’t like working inside all the time, so he became a guide. Now, as he says gesturing widely at the landscape, “this is my office”.

I ‘m sure Karen never thought she would sleep in a Yurt, but that’s what we have a Patagonia Camp. Yurts come from Mongolia. There, they are made from the hides of yaks and, from what I’m told smell pretty bad. Ours is more of a pre-fab modern design with glass windows and porcelain fixtures (a key feature in Karen’s mind).

For our first afternoon’s entertainment, we took a short 3½ mile hike to a waterfall. Karen decided to spend her time unpacking, so it was just the guys. It was a good hike and the waterfall was worth the walk.

The food here is good. Given the setting, you don’t expect the quality presentation that it is given. We are the only ones here right now, so we get great service from the staff.

 

Posted from Torres del Paine, Magallanes and Antartica Chilena Region, Chile.

After fueling in Puerto Monte, we took to the skies to fly farther south to Puerto Natales, where we would spend the next four nights. Our stay there has been extended due to the rescheduling around volcanic activity and bad weather. It doesn’t look like we will see penguins, but I would rather miss them than fight with Mother Nature.

The flight from SCTE to SCNT was 2.3 hours, requiring 127 gallons of Jet-A. We took off at 3:22 after only an hour on the ground. The quick turnaround was important because the airport in Puerto Natales closes at 6:00, so we had to hurry.

We flew south before turning east to descend to the airport. The wind was around 100 knots from the west at 31,000 feet, so we knew we would be moving fast after the turn. Sure enough, even with the power pulled back, we didn’t get below 350 mph until we leveled at 3,500 feet.

Radio communication is not perfect around here. We went for many minutes without being able to reach the controller. After trying for 20 minutes with no luck, we began our descent. That got their attention. They called pretty quick asking us why we left our assigned altitude. We apologized and said we couldn’t reach them and needed to descend to 15,000 feet. He then cleared us to that level and we went into the clouds.

We bounced around a bit and picked up some ice, but could not descend lower until we got past the mountains west of the airport. They directed us to enter the hold and descend to 3,500. It was an interesting approach with the ice and high speed.

The only approach for SCNT is VOR 28. Because of the nearby mountains, it is an offset approach that doesn’t line you up with the runway. We finally broke free of the clouds at 1,500 feet and began searching for the airport. You’d think a strip of black asphalt on a brown desert would be easy to find, but it was one of the toughest we’ve had to locate.

With the wind blowing at nearly 30 knots, we landed at 5:43. Plenty of time before closing! Howard touched down ten minutes later. His GPS quit as he began his descent, so he had a more interesting time than I did. An old Boeing 737 took off a couple of minutes later, the last scheduled flight of the week.

There aren’t a lot people around here. It is desolate, sorta like Calama, only colder and near sea level.

The airport guys were nice and hung around until the van showed up from the hotel. The hotel is a nice place along the shore with a great view of the mountains over the water.

For the first time, weather has affected our journey. Our plans to visit Punta Arenas have been derailed by rainy skies and very low ceilings.

Our day began with fog down to the ground at the Santiago airport and weather reports at the three airports we were scheduled to fly to today calling for very low ceilings, rain and high winds (depending on which airport you looked at). It seems there is a weather system affecting all of southern Chile in a bad way. Add to that the smoldering volcano and our schedule requires a little re-thinking.

We left Ian and Sue Runge in Santiago. After traveling with us to Easter Island, they are going to visit some more wineries before returning to the States. We picked up Michael Janzen who will fly with his dad while Cherine returns to the U.S. for a week. We wish them all safe travels.

We took our time getting to the FBO. Once there we checked out our airplanes and prepared to fly somewhere. The skies brightened in Santiago, but the low ceilings persisted in Puerto Monte, which was to be our first stop for fuel.

We finally took off at 12:13. The flight from SCEL to SCTE was 2 hours and consumed 107 gallons of fuel. It was beautiful at 31,000 feet. We flew by two volcanoes that were puffing smoke from ice covered cones. The second one is smaller than surrounding mountains, but it is sending ash into the air that blows into Argentina. That is why we had to change our schedule and eliminate one of our stops. When we could see the ground there were some beautiful lakes and glaciers.

Getting into Puerto Montt required the ILS 35 Z approach. The airport is not at a high elevation, but with the nearby mountains, the controllers keep you in pretty close, requiring a tight turn. Naturally, we were in the clouds (wouldn’t want to make it too easy), but we broke clear at 400 feet and were welcomed by one of the best runway lighting systems I’ve seen. Given the weather reports from earlier, I can see why they need the extensive lights.

To re-fuel you don’t just pull up and hand the guy a credit card and tell him to “fill er up”. We are taking fuel from the airlines and we have to have a fuel release faxed from a company that promises to pay them. Plus, some places (like Puerto Montt) do not have a fuel truck, so we have to park near the fuel pit and a truck comes with a pump to move fuel from the pit to our planes. It makes for an interesting challenge sometimes. Thank goodness for Air Journey. They make all the arrangements so that it looks easy.

On to Puerto Natales…

After three days of tropical sunshine, we flew back to Santiago, Chile for a one-night stay before continuing our journey south.

The airline has one flight a day between Santiago and Easter Island. It goes out to the island in the morning and returns in the afternoon. By chance, we had the same crew as our outbound flight. Apparently, they too had enjoyed a few days on the island.

With the flight leaving at 2:00 in the afternoon, we had time to visit a museum with artifacts of the Rapa Nui people. The displays show the various styles of the Moai carvings and the tools used to create the statues. Despite all of the theories, much of the culture has been lost due to civil war, disease, destruction and erosion, leaving speculation to explain the “why” behind many of the things that are seen on the island.

After the museum, we strolled down one of the tourist shopping streets. Unfortunately, nearly everything was made in China. Someone did have a brightly painted signpost on a corner with the distances to New Zealand, Tahiti and Hawaii.

There is a 2 hour time change during the flight, so we returned to a dark Santiago. We stayed at the Holiday Inn just outside the airline terminal (like right across from the taxi pickup line). It’s amazing how much alike Holiday Inns are throughout the world. Nothing exciting, but very consistent.

By the time we got settled in our rooms and got served, it was very late. I never seem to learn to just skip eating when it gets past ten in the evening.

 

Posted from Santiago, Santiago Metropolitan Region, Chile.

The last full day on Easter Island brought more exciting adventure! Howard, Cherine, Karen and I went horseback riding in the morning. Our guide was Natalie and the horses certainly knew who was boss (it wasn’t us). We strapped on our chaps and helmets, mounted our trusty steeds, and rode into the sunset (noon-day sun just doesn’t sound as good).

We stopped and explored a lava tube that went from a small hole in the ground to a large shaft that opened on a shear cliff about fifty feet above the crashing waves. After that, we worked our way inland to another lava tube that created a large cave and tunnel network that once served as house and garden for ancient people. Howard and I followed that tunnel for maybe half a mile before coming up through one of the large openings.

Our final segment on the horses was to travel to the seven Moai that face out to sea. All of the other Moai (except some at the quarry) face inland, so these are exceptional.

Natalie took all five horses back to the stable (without tying them together) and we rode in a van to the shore to meet the rest of our group for lunch. The hotel had everything set up on the lava, just short of the rising tide and crashing waves. It was very nice. The waves kept us guessing about when we were going to get wet.

That afternoon we took a van over one of the worst roads in the world to the top of a dormant volcano. The crater is a mile across and about 200 meters deep. Outside of the crater, there is an abandoned village with round houses built of stacked rocks. These are the only houses on the island that don’t have thatched roofs. They used this place for the bird man competition once a year and supposedly built with stones to make it permanent.

For the competition, each clan would choose a champion who would climb down the cliff and swim out to the island where the migratory birds nest. There they would wait for the birds to arrive so they could steal an egg and carry it back to the mainland and up the cliff to the head man of the island. Whoever got his egg back first would be the bird man for the next year. Apparently, this was a big honor, although it involved six months of isolation and celibacy, so I don’t get it.

After getting beat up in the van going back down the hill, massages awaited at pool side. I chose a cold cervesa to sooth tired muscles.

It was a good day.

After yesterday’s death march, we were a little suspicious when the guide said we had a pleasant hike for our morning excursion. Every activity begins with a ride in the van over a truly miserable road. I think they intentionally leave the road in poor shape to make whatever comes next seem good in comparison.

Today, we are only hiking a few miles along a trail that follows the path of abandoned Moai. The theory is that this is the route from the quarry where the Moai were carved. Apparently, something happened and several were just abandoned along the trail. Over the years, erosion due to weather has eaten away at the stone. Most of them are face down so you can still see the features through the tall grass.

We finally reach the quarry, a volcano with a well-formed crater. We climb to the top and descend into the crater. A scientific team is there doing some sort of research using instruments mounted on a Zodiac. The water is only a few meters deep and is mostly covered with reeds.

The source of the stone for the Moai is along the outside flank of the crater. This stone was soft compared to the basalt and lava found on most of the island. They carved the Moai in place and, after finishing the features, cut them free along a keel that ran down the back. Using ropes and logs they moved them across the island and mounted them on the burial platforms. There are conflicting theories about how they moved them. The most popular one is that they “walked” them by using ropes at the bottom and top to twist the statue and walk it forward. To me, that doesn’t seem as efficient as using logs, but who knows?

Monday morning we took a commercial flight to Easter Island. It was a nearly five hour flight from the mainline, much farther than we can fly in our TBMs.

The folks from the Explora Hotel picked us up at the airport. This hotel is owned by the same company that owns the hotel in Atacama. They too specialize in torturing their guests with a wide array of outdoor activities .

Actually, they do a good job of getting you engaged with the island and its history. Our guide is very knowledgable. Her grandfather was mayor of the island when Thor Heyerdahl came here in 1956 to do archaeological studies.

The Explora company builds nice hotels in exciting locations, but they can’t seem to figure out how to get a decent Internet connection for their guests. It means I see more sunrises than I would otherwise (probably another plot on their part to get me up and moving).

The first afternoon we had an excursion with our guide NuNae (?) to visit the largest group of repositioned Moai and to hike from the end of the road near the ocean to a hill several miles away.

There are 15 Moai that have been repositioned onto their platform facing away from the ocean. During the civil wars on the island, all of the Moai were pushed over. Working with archaeologists, these and a few others have been restored to their former positions. These are close to the quarry where the stone for the Moai originated. They are impressive when you get close.

During our visit to this area we noticed four Japanese folks, including one who was dressed in a bright yellow chicken suit. The others seemed to be filming the chicken person as he/she danced around about 100 yards in front of the Moai platform. We never did figure out what it was all about, but it was curious.

The hike followed the visit to the Moai. The hike was mostly over lava rocks that were sharp and uneven. There wasn’t a lot of up and down, but it did require that you carefully watch where you put your feet. It was tiring and some of us weren’t appropriately attired. By the time we reached a small harbor, we were ready to call it a day, even though the destination hill didn’t seem much closer.

We ended our excursion by visiting one of only two sand beaches on the island. This one had several imported palm trees and restored Moai. Sue and Thierry and I swam in the South Pacific Ocean. The others laid around on the beach.

It was good to get back to the hotel.

 

Posted from Isla de Pascua, Valparaíso, Chile.

We began our first full day in Chile with a tour of Santiago. Our guide was good and pointed out many significant buildings and architectural features. Since it was Sunday morning, the traffic was very light. That made for easy travel through the city.

We got to see the changing of the guard downtown. The soldiers were in their dress uniforms and some of them were on horseback. After that, we went to a museum that had artifacts from the early civilizations in Chile.

The afternoon was devoted to touring and tasting at a couple of wineries. The first one, the Emiliana Winery, was devoted to ecologically friendly methods of growing grapes and processing the wine. They use chickens to fight bug pests and flowers to fend off smaller threats to the vines. They have about 500 acres of grapes. The wine was good.

The second winery was larger, in a beautiful location with many acres of grapes spread around a large central building. A new building was under construction at the top of a hill, overlooking the vineyard.

Our guide for the winery tours was a non-stop talker with a depth of knowledge about wine and Chile. After the wineries, he took us to a non-tourist place for empanadas. These things are great. It is a flour tortilla with beef, onion, peppers and an olive folded inside, crimped around the edges like a pie crust, and baked to a golden brown in an outdoor stone oven. We followed that tasty dinner with a stop at another non-tourist place that served desserts.

As you can see from the picture with the empty plates, the food was good. Disregard the wine glasses. These guys are a bad influence

After our hour and a half van ride, we paid our fees (in cash) and left Calama. It was a good flight, with the path taking us along the western flank of the Andes Mountains. We were in the clear, but could see the building clouds over the mountains to our left.

Howard and Cherine spent 40 minutes on the ground at the end of the runway with the engine running waiting for the controllers to get their act together and give them a clearance. At one point, they were given a routing through Boliva. Howard kept trying to tell them to give them the same clearance I had just used to take off, but that didn’t seem to be possible. They finally took off much later than we did and got routed down the coast.

The FBO is the best we have used so far. They were prompt, efficient and helpful in their handling of the airplane and our luggage.

We are staying at the Grand Hyatt hotel in Santiago. What a place. This is the fanciest hotel of the trip.

Ian and Sue Runge joined us here. They will travel with us to Easter Island. They own a TBM, but came in commercial for this trip.

My excursion this morning was a 3 mile hike through a canyon. The terrain rises about 500 feet along the route. Just to make it interesting, the elevation is 11,400 feet.

Howard and I went on the hike with Javier, our guide, and a couple from Munich, Germany. They are reporters, one sports, the other city politics. They get four weeks of vacation every year and spend it hiking in different places around the world. They were in Patagonia (where we are going next) before they came to Atacama.

It was a pretty hike, with a healthy creek running through the middle of the canyon. The creek was surrounded with pampas grass. Javier said many people despise the grass and burn it and try to destroy it (sort of like we do Kudzu).

We saw places where shepherds bring llamas through the canyon. They build corrals and store food in the canyon wall.

Karen’s excursion was to the pool, where she made sure the drinks were the right temperature. I joined her in the afternoon, skipping any further hiking related activities.

 

Posted from San Pedro de Atacama, Antofagasta, Chile.

The hotel feels obligated to schedule you for two excursions each day. One early in the morning and one in late afternoon.

Our first excursion was to hike the Cornisas Trail. They take you out in a van and drop you off at the beginning of Death Valley (that’s what they call it). From there you hike uphill to the cliff overlooking the valley, then along the cliff wall for about a mile and a half. Then, you have to go down. The only way to the bottom is down the face of a 500 foot tall sand dune. Once you get to the bottom of the valley you have the pleasure of walking another mile or so to get back to the van.

It was a beautiful hike. The desert is bordered by snow capped volcanoes. You can see the mountains that mark the border with Bolivia. The sky was a crystal blue with a few traces of white clouds.

Karen’s small feet and short legs were not well suited to the loose sand on the dune. The guide ran down the face of the dune. With my big feet, I plodded down. Karen took a lot of steps, trying to make sure she didn’t go head first. Then, when she was hiking across the bottom of the valley, she kept looking up and asking if the van was behind the next boulder. Considering that we did all of this at nearly 11,000 feet above sea level, she did great!

Our guide was Javier. Another guest accompanied us. She was from Brazil. This was her third day at the hotel and her first excursion. She lives in Rio de Janeiro and had spent two days acclimating to the altitude.

Our afternoon excursion began with a van trip to a small village. The place can’t have more than a couple of hundred people. There is a town square with a bell tower and an old church.

After the village, we visited the salt flats where flamingos come in summer. Most of the birds were gone, but it was interesting to see the flats. This place is often called the driest on Earth, with little annual rainfall. It has been used to film movies about Mars because it is as close as you can come on Earth to that environment. The lizards we saw seemed comfortable, but I wouldn’t want to live here.

They have a great pool, four pools actually, all about 75 feet long and set away from the rooms. You go along a board walkway to reach them. The pools have an “infinity” design where the water laps over the edge of the pool. You have wonder how they keep them full in this very dry atmosphere. The water was quite cold, but refreshing.

Howard and Cherine came in today from Cuzco. They were one day behind us because they had stayed two nights at Machu Picchu.

Before I left the Hotel Monasterio, I visited the chapel. It was magnificent. They maintain it and it is used for services, including weddings.

The weather in Cuzco was overcast, but the ceilings were manageable. We flew the published departure and climbed above the clouds around 17,000 feet.

The flight from SPZO to SCCF was 2 hours and 19 minutes and used 111 gallons of fuel at 31,000 feet. Once we got away from Cuzco, the controllers were okay, with the ones in Chile being very professional. I think my flying was better because of the authentic Peruvian hat I wore.

Our approach into La Loa airport was uneventful after I circled once to loose the extra altitude we carried over the mountains. The wind was never less than 20 knots. They failed to put chocks on the wheels when we parked. I was standing next to the plane and it started rolling away. I pushed on it and called for G to set the brakes. We finally found some chocks, but I left the brakes set.

My first thought after we shut down was, “What are we doing here?” This is a desolate place. We flew over a big mining operation, but there is nothing else around.

It was a long ride to the Explora Hotel. I stretched out across the seat. Karen took some pictures of the desert terrain. The last couple of miles into Atacama and the hotel are miserable. The road is only a memory, and any springs in the van are long gone.

The hotel is okay. It is clean and basic. Apparently, people come here to torture themselves with high altitude hiking, horseback riding, mountain biking and other such things. You have to wonder why Air Journey thought I would fit in in this environment!

The Hotel Montesario is beautiful. On a personal note, it gets the award, so far, for the best towels and the best pillows. Finally, a hotel that provides a pillow that doesn’t elevate your head to the sky so you wake up with a sore neck.

There were no official activities today. Howard and Cherine stayed over in Machu Picchu, so we were on our own.

Karen and I went to a store near the hotel that sells alpaca knitted goods. They had all kinds of garments – capes, scarves, sweaters, coats… We bought a couple of things.

Our guide the previous day told us about the different kinds of materials used by the natives. Llama is a coarser fiber, followed by adult alpaca, then baby alpaca, which was the one normally found in better garments. The finest was vicuna, an extremely fine fiber. We got to feel a sample of the vicuna. It was like rubbing your fingers over finely sifted flour. We saw a cape made of vicuna that was on display in one of the shops. The price tag was over $6,000.

It rained off and on during the whole day. The rain began as we walked into the main plaza of the town. After dodging around the Kentucky Fried Chicken and the McDonalds (no, Joan we did not eat at either one!), we found the Inca Museum.

We purchased our tickets and engaged the assistance of a guide. The museum was not fancy (the Mount Airy Museum of Regional History is a nicer facility), but they have a large number of artifacts from the pre-Inca period, some going back to 5,000 B.C. The guide spoke decent English and he explained all of the exhibits. Some had signs in English, but most did not, so I am glad we had him along. It was fascinating the number of cultures that developed before the Inca. The Inca are better known because they conquered those around them and built an extensive empire just prior to the arrival of the Spanish. But they couldn’t stand up to the firepower of Pizzaro.

Two hours flew by, and before we knew it, it was 1:00 p.m. and time to meet G for lunch. Javier, our guide from yesterday, recommended La Cucchino (?). We walked from the hotel around the block and went into what looked like an alley then up some steps. I learned that nothing looks very nice from the street. Whether it is a house, or a store or a hotel, you have to go inside to know what it is really like. The restaurant was packed with people, many of the businessmen at lunch and all locals.

G and I had alpaca steak. It was tough, but pretty tasty. Karen stuck with a more traditional chicken. I had an apple thing for dessert. The cinnamon ice cream was the real attraction, but the caramel glazed apples weren’t bad.

Late in the day, Javier returned to take us to a jewelry factory. We took a taxi off the main road into an area that would have worried me if I didn’t have a guide. We walked up to an entrance covered by a locked metal gate, reached through the bars and knocked. Again, the true picture emerges once you are inside. They had pictures of Carmen Diaz and Olivia Newton John with the pieces they bought from them. They showed us the men making the jewelry. We then went to their showroom where the handmade silver and gold pieces are on display in the three rooms.

Tomorrow, we depart Peru for Chile.

We visited one of the world’s greatest archaeological sites – Machu Picchu. Situated at 8,000 feet in the Peruvian Andes, you have to wonder what drove the Incas to pick that particular mountaintop for their town. I also wonder what drove Hiram Bingham to search for, and find, the place in 1911.

It was a long day for us. We met in the lobby of our hotel in Cuzco at 7:30 a.m. and rode a bus for an hour and 15 minutes to another Orient Express Hotel in Urubama where we boarded the Hiram Bingham Express train for the 3½ hour ride to Aqua Caliente, the town 2,000 feet below Machu Picchu. From the town we took a 25 minute bus ride up a winding dirt road that makes Orchard Gap look like a 4-lane express highway.

After all of that, when we finally walked through the entrance and looked across the mountainside at the site, it was worth every minute. Forgetting for a moment all of the questions about “why”, this is an amazing feat of engineering and persistence. There are hundreds of buildings and walls forming terraces and temples and storehouses and homes.

The Incas grew crops (mostly corn and potatoes) on the terraces. Water originated from a well higher up on the mountain and was routed through the city via a manmade aquaduct. The roofs of the buildings were thatch, so other than a few that are restored, none of the buildings have roofs today. But, the walls survive, despite earthquakes over several centuries. The original stucco and brightly colored paint have long since washed away, leaving the raw stone.

Our guide began the tour by having us climb up to the top through a series of stone steps. In a couple of places we walked along the Inca Trail that connects the city and the rest of the Inca Empire through 29,000 miles of trails.

Huayna Picchu is the mountain seen behind the city in many photographs. There is a narrow trail that winds up to the top. They allow 200 people per day to ascend the trail and you have to start early in the morning. Karen and I only have the one day here, so we won’t be able to make the climb. Howard and Cherine are staying at The Sanctuary hotel just outside of the gate and will go up tomorrow.

There are llamas that wander around the place. They don’t seem to be bothered much by people. I think they are for decoration more than anything. The animals have traditionally been used for food, clothing and light domestic use. Their spines are weak, so they can’t carry a heavy load.

There are stone doorways that mark the entrances to the city and important buildings within the walls. The guide showed us drawings of how wooden doors could be secured in the still-existing stone fixtures.

Terraces cover the hillsides and provide enough cropland to feed many more people than ever inhabited the place. It seems that the city was designed to be much more than it ever was. Arrival of the Spanish, although they never found Machu Picchu, killed the Inca Empire and ended whatever grand plan there may have been for the place.

Stone steps and terraces are the defining characteristic of the ruins, and we walked over many of them. Given the height of the steps, you would think the Inca were a tall people, but that was not the case. They were just a very hearty bunch.

With all of this walking and hiking, Karen says THANK YOU DENISE! Without her trainer she would not have been able to do such a great job of climbing throughout the site.

 

Posted from Cusco, Peru.

What a flight! 3 hours 52 minutes from SEQU to SPZO using 182 gallons. Unfortunately, we didn’t see much of Peru. Nearly all of the flight was either inside of or above cloud layers.

At least the weather was better leaving Quito than it was when we flew in yesterday. The driver had another group to pick up after us, so the five of us rode to the airport in a bus built for thirty people. I don’t see how he maneuvered that big vehicle through those streets.

As we departed, we could see the city and we flew over the new Quito airport that will open once they build a road to it.

The descent and approach into Cuzco is interesting. You have to take a class and get a permit before flying into the airport. What they don’t tell you is the controllers are not the world’s best and they may guide you to non-standard altitudes that are VERY close to or inside of a mountain. We refused one directive to descend and go direct to the VOR, choosing instead to fly the published approach. I’m glad we did. We broke out a little above minimums to fly the VFR approach to land on runway 28. I was looking forward to this flight and the approach. It did not disappoint.

The airplane has a system to automatically deploy oxygen masks for the passengers if the cabin pressure goes above 10,000 feet. This is like the ones in commercial airliners where the masks drop down and you give it a tug and put it on your face. The problem is that Cuzco is 10,860 feet above sea level. If you don’t turn off the automatic system you will end up with the masks dangling from the ceiling. Very annoying when you are on the ground. Plus, you have to pay a mechanic to re-install them. So, we had to remember to turn off the oxygen system before we landed. Fortunately, we did remember. The system generated an alarm saying the cabin pressure was too high, but that was better than the masks ending up in Karen’s lap (I don’t think she would have been amused).

The handlers here are not as good as the ones in Quito. There were questions about having to prepay in cash, we never did get fuel before leaving the airport, and, after more than four hours in the airplane, a quick trip to the restroom is not asking too much. Maybe it will be better when we leave.

 

Posted from Cuzco, Cusco, Peru.

The biggest surprise about Ecuador is how green everything is. The mountains around Quito are 14,000+ feet above sea level. I expected things to be brown like in the Rockies at home, but it is mostly a beautiful shade of green.

The handlers in Cartagena did a great job in moving us through emigration and getting us across the runway to our airplanes. We had fueled up when we landed, so we were ready to go after the preflight. Since I have the journey director with me we get to go first, plus we are usually flying higher than Howard in his 700 model TBM.

The flight from SKCG to SEQU took 2.8 hours and 142 gallons of fuel. Much of the flight (1.6 hours) was spent without seeing the ground. We were assigned the Approach 4 VOR DME ILS Rwy 35 into Quito.

As we approached the VOR, we saw an airport through clouds. G said, “there’s the airport, we can do a visual.” I prefer to fly the approach when I am flying into an airport for the first time, so we continued. Go thing, because that runway was the new Quito airport and it won’t be open for another ten months (they have to build a road to it).

We crossed the VOR at 17,000 feet and flew 16 miles as we descended to 13,200 feet before beginning our turn back to the airport and continuing the descent to 12,000 feet. We broke out of the clouds about then. I’m not accustomed to preparing to land at 12,000, so I was late in starting down, but quickly got it under control.

The views of the mountains are tremendous. As we moved from the ramp to the terminal we passed hundreds of boxes of flowers that were packed for export. Our handler said you can buy 100 roses for four dollars. I’m not sure what makes it such a good place for roses, but they are beautiful.

We stayed in the Patio Anduluz Hotel near one of the main plazas in the town. The desk staff were dressed in traditional capes and were very friendly. Dinner was at a restaurant on the plaza. Our hotel rooms were on the front of the hotel, along the street. There was a lot more activity during the night than I expected. The noise, plus the two-story room with the circular staircase made it an interesting night.

 

Posted from Quito, Pichincha, Ecuador.

More touring today, this time to the top of the highest hill in town where there is a church. It has a beautiful chapel and a great view of the city and its harbor.

We also went to a fort built by the Spanish to defend the city. It is part of the walled fortifications that surround the old city. Cartagena was originally a gathering point for the Spanish fleet that would take the treasure from the New World back to Spain.

Given the predominantly English heritage of the U.S. we are accustomed to hearing about Sir Francis Drake in a positive light. Down here they call him, Drake the Pirate, and it is not said with love. Drake attacked the city and was defeated by the “half man”. I don’t remember his name, but this guy had one arm, one leg and one eye. He lost the missing pieces in battles. There is a statue of him in front of the fort we visited.

We watched the sundown at the top of the fortress wall. There were several wind surfers in the ocean showing off for everyone. These guys must have tremendous stamina because they surfed for several miles down the coast toward the harbor.

We made it to South America!

Seven Mile Beach is lovely, but it was time to move on. We were up early to pack, get breakfast, check out of the hotel and take the short taxi ride to the airport.

One thing you learn once you leave the U.S. is there are LOTS of fees associated with flying, and the Cayman Islands is no exception. Plus, they are smart about collecting them. If you try to take off owing them money they won’t give you a clearance. The tower simply says you must return to the ramp to pay up before they will process your flight plan. We didn’t have that problem. G from Air Journey has been here several times and knows the ropes. He moved us through the various steps without a problem.

At 10:03 we lifted off and climbed to 31,000 feet. Although our flight plan called for us to fly to Montego Bay, Jamaica before turning south to Columbia, the controller gave us a short cut directly to KILER, where we entered Columbian airspace. Howard was at 27,000 feet and about 10 minutes behind us. He had a pretty good tail wind, but we had a slight head wind most of the way.

The flight from MWGR to SKCG took 2 hours and 29 minutes and used 142 gallons of fuel. Following the RNAV 01 approach, we landed at 12:32 in Cartagena. The handlers greeted us and we were quickly fueled up and sped through customs and immigration. Since we were all aircraft crew members, we didn’t have to wait through the same lines as the passengers from the airliners.

Our guide, Dora met us as we exited customs. After dropping our luggage at the Charleston Santa Teresa hotel, we had lunch and she took us on a walking tour through the old city. There are 1,000,000 people here and it has been a thriving city for five hundred years. The architecture is predominately Spanish with some French influence.

Our hotel is like several other boutique hotels we saw. They all have a center courtyard open to the sky that is surrounded by several stories with rooms. As soon as you enter the whole feeling changes from the hustle and bustle of the street to the quiet and calm of the courtyard. And, except for the outrageously priced Internet service, it is very nice.

Tonight is dinner at Don Juan’s. I am expecting traditional Columbian cuisine, but I’m not quite certain what that is. We’ll see.

It is great to meet old friends, particularly in unusual places. Bob and Teresa Crumley were staying at the Ritz Carlton Grand Cayman for several weeks as Teresa recovered from knee surgery.

The idea of Bob taking four weeks off is hard to get used to, but he says it has gone very well. Apparently, he has taken up yoga through classes offered at the hotel.

They joined our group several times for drinks and dinner. They (Bob) fit right in talking about airplanes and flying (I’m not sure what the women talked about).

Speaking of running into people, former governor Jim Hunt and his wife were also at the hotel. I looked up from my drink by the pool and there he was, swimming away.

The first stop on our journey is the Cayman Islands. These islands lie south of Cuba and have long been a haven for scuba divers and financial types.

Guillaume Fabry (“G”) is our journey director from Air Journey. He will fly with Karen and I until we arrive in Santiago, Chile. We all met at Galaxy Aviation at the Palm Beach airport where G gave us our preflight briefing. He had already filed our flight plans and had the weather information for our flight.

We took off from runway 10L at KPBI at 10:54 and, after a few vectors, climbed to 31,000 feet and turned south toward Cuban airspace. For the third time in a month, I got to see Cuba from way up in the air. There were lots of clouds over the island, so it was difficult to get a clear picture of the land. What I saw was mostly near the coast. There are some great looking beaches. When they finally open it up to Americans it will be an exciting place to visit.

The Cuban controllers were professional with good English. They handed us off to Jamaican control since Jamaica provides air traffic services for the Cayman Islands. There were a number of other aircraft going into Grand Cayman, but the controller did a good job of managing everyone and keeping us separated, particularly since he does not have a radar to track the airplanes. We ended up being number two to land  in the middle of several airliners.

G and I set up a small video camera to film the approach and landing. This is only the second time I have used it, so we are still in the experimental stage. It worked pretty well and I will try to film all of the approaches during the journey. If I can figure out how to post them on this site I will.

Once we broke out under the clouds you could see several cruise ships anchored off of the island near George Town. When five or six of the ships show up at the same time the population of the island goes up by more than 20% overnight.

We landed at 12:42 having flown the 449 nautical miles from KPBI to MWCR in 1 hour and 48 minutes using 104 gallons of fuel.

Customs could not have been easier. I gave G my passport and waited by the plane and the luggage. Karen and G came back about fifteen minutes later and said,  ”Welcome to the Caymans.”

The taxi carried us to the Ritz Carlton resort where we are to stay for two nights. It is a beautiful place with a wonderful pool, beach and bar – all right next to one another.

Overcast skies, pilot reports of icing in North Carolina and turbulence in South Carolina – what a great day to begin our journey. After a conversation with the friendly briefer at Flight Service, I realized my original plan was not so bad after all. Our usual route south to Savannah, then over the water off shore until we find West Palm Beach, Florida is the best choice.

Of course, the weather had other ideas, even at 30,000 feet. We flew nearly the entire trip in the middle of a cloud with the occasional light chop (turbulence) just to keep us awake. Between the Nexrad radar downlink from XM and the onboard weather radar we managed to dodge all of the rain. We couldn’t see anything, but we didn’t get wet. (I still don’t see how you have clouds when it is -41 degrees.)

Dad came to the airport to see us off. He is a great help getting the airplane pulled out and he took some photographs of our departure. It is nice of him to see us off on our adventure.

The flight was 2 hours and 22 minutes from KMWK to KPBI. We flew the RNAV 14 approach into Palm Beach International, burning 141 gallons of fuel to go 638 nautical miles.

The other couple going on this journey arrived at PBI 30 minutes after we did, so we shared a ride to the hotel and caught up on things since we last saw them. The Air Journey folks hosted us for dinner at Renato’s, a great Italian restaurant.

Karen and I have never been to any of the places on our itinerary, so we are looking forward to the adventure.

Posted from West Palm Beach, Florida, United States.

All journeys begin somewhere, and for us that is Mount Airy, North Carolina.

Our son, Jay came home from college Friday night and helped me get the airplane ready to go. We removed two of the six seats and installed the drawers he built. Plus, we loaded the airplane supplies into the forward baggage compartment. Everything is in good shape for our trip.

Posted from Mt Airy, North Carolina, United States.