2000 Light Years Away

I'll try to keep this short..

May 30th
Rob takes off for the terminal. I spend 2 hours straitening all the paperwork with the airport (taxes, flight plan, fueling, etc.). Finally I'm off! I take off and it's a very long 5-hour flight. I start talking to myself. I'm a pretty fun guy to talk to, I must say.. :-/

I get to Campo Grande, Brazil to refuel. All's good, but again, it takes a little over an hour to get everything done. I takeoff an hour before sunset and this leaves me with 2 hours of flying left over unknown territory. The sunset? Gorgeous. The moonlight reflecting off the Paraguay River? Ravishing. Landing in Asuncion, Paraguay and completing the job? Uber satisfying!

I meet with the clients briefly and I'm dropped off at the hotel. Wow! What a sweet hotel. So green with a pool that has a waterfall. Now I have to figure out how I'm gonna get back. I call TACA airlines and they don't have a seat for the following day, so this leaves me with an extra day in Paraguay.

May 31st
I sleep in... it felt gooooooooooood!!! I get up and take a stroll around the city. I get some cash and buy a converter/adapter for my electronics (they use a funky looking outlet out there). I then go to a fluff and fold and get all my clothes washed.. I swear, I was getting pretty stinky.  I chat it up with a cab driver and he tells me where to go at night. I spend the rest of the afternoon strolling the streets.. I see that there's a lot of guitar and harp shops around, so I hope in one and purchase a 1 hour lesson with a guitar teacher.. I learn a new strumming pattern... good times!

I head out around 9pm to a local night club. I buy a couple beers and meet this super hot girl named.. uh, let's just call her Shirley (names are funny-sounding down there). After a couple beers, I'm already buzzing it and I'm tired. I head back to the hotel and knock out fairly early.

June 1st
Wake up at 5am. Grrrr.

I head to the airport to catch a flight. While I'm waiting for the flight, I meet this 19 year old kid who had just spent the last 9 months living in Paraguay. He went there to visit his grandmother whom is in the peace corps, and decided to stay there with some random German family. The dude worked and live there... and learned Spanish quite well! It was inspirational to hear his story.

I get to Lima, Peru and wait 4 hours for my next flight to Costa Rica.. It was a long wait, but what are you gonna do? That's part of it. I finally get to Costa Rica a little past 5pm.

I grab a cab and head to the house where I had set up my stay. I met these people through airbnb.com. Basically, it's people who rent out rooms in their house. The owner of this particular house is from SoCal. We chatted it up for a bit and then I headed out to take a stroll around town. Found a Peruvian restaurant and had some amazing food. It just sucks I was alone...

And so here I lay in bed, in this really cool house. The crickets are chirping outside. I can hear them all, the window is open. Water is flowing. I hear light rain striking all the greenery. The fresh air feels real good. Tomorrow I head to a Volcano to do some zip lines and possible see some monkeys. As I lay here, on the brink of completing this trip, I can't help to wonder how much more awesome it would've been to have shared this experience with all my friends. I wouldn't be anything without them. I love the world and I love what it offers, but what good is it if I have no one to share it with?

Much love to all my friends.

Welcome to the Jungle

Well, I made it to Brazil yesterday. Belem, Brazil to be exact. When we first parked the airplane, we dealt with all the people we had to deal with... except the important one who was serving as our "concierge." So what happened? Well, we basically ended up in the police station at the airport, on what seemed to be the verge of getting arrested. Rob and I were staring at each other as the officers made phone calls and what not. Finally, I spoke up and mentioned "Lider Aviation," which were our "handlers" (a concierge of sorts- someone who handles all the legal paperwork). He made another phone call and it seemed to be in the clear. We're in!

We got our permission to stay in Brazil (for those who don't know, you need a visa to enter Brazil). As pilots, we were given five days int he country. Anyway, it took a couple of hours to handle the whole mess. It didn't help that our "concierge" spoke broken English and very limited Spanish...


So far, here's what I've learned about Brazil:
- Very few people speak anything other than Portuguese
- The cool part of the Amazon lies in the West side of Brazil
- They really don't like people without a visa
- The people are really nice and tipping isn't customary
- Bugs really like to bite
- There are some humid areas and some dry-heat areas
- The toilets flush the other way!
- Not all the girls have a big booty
- Portunol is a mix between Portuguese and Spanish (similar to Spanglish)
- They love their soccer (but we already knew that)

The flight to Brazil was very long, and we ended up diverting a couple of times for some massive thunderstorms. Apparently, Belem is known for having very strong storms. Yippy! In the end, we made it to the ground alright, but after it was all said and down, a massive storm hit the airport. I had never heard such strong rain falling. It was definitely a cool thing to witness. Everyone there was so nonchalant about it.

We get to our hotel and you definitely know you're not in Kansas anymore. The humidity is the worst I've every experienced. The bugs enjoy the smell/sight of new blood... and the hotel had a couple of interesting, colorful birds that seemed to be the norm around these neck of the woods. I take a stroll around the streets and see what the city can offer. No one speaks English here... and they barely understand Spanish. So trying to purchase some snacks for our trip seemed humorous to the cashier at the small drug store I found.

We rest up and get up at 5:30am, shower, and head to the airport. It takes a couple of hours to pay the landing fees and files the flight plans. I also had to wait for the currency exchange place to open (I really needed local currency- i.e., "reals"). The wait gave us time to eat breakfast. It's funny, we never plan to eat, we just eat when we can. It just happens to be right before a flight and immediately after a flight. This flying stuff really takes a beating on you.

We finally takeoff around close to 9am. I was a bit disappointed, thinking I would see more of the Amazon, but it all looked like the Midwest or Central California. Eh! We dodge a couple of convective weather and then it all looks clear. Phew! Thank goodness! I normally like flying through clouds and what not, but the weather out here seems to be on crack or something, cause every time we entered a cloud it seemed to be more violent than what I'm used to.

Five hours after takeoff we finally land in Palmas, Brazil. This was only suppose to be a fuel stop, but it last well over an hour cause one of their systems was down. In the U.S., everything is free for pilots, but over here we have to pay fees and taxes just for landing at an airport... this is what took forever Thankfully the guy helping me out actually spoke Spanish quite well (compared to the rest of the Brazilians). We fuel up and takeoff for Brasilia, Brazil. It was a normal 3 hour flight, but we were getting very tired. Rob slept for a good 45 minutes.. I got bored, so I decided to wake him up a la 0 g's. I dropped the airplane rapidly and made him float while he slept. Surprisingly, it didn't wake him up instantly! I found it pretty entertaining.

Well, here we are in Brasilia, Brazil. Spending the night at the airport. This FBO (where we park the airplanes) has rooms that they rent out to pilots. It's actually quite nice. Plus, it's cool having the airplane just 50 meters away (yes, I started using the metric system, ugh!).

Rob is leaving tomorrow. He's heading home. This leaves me alone for the last day of flying. Another long and arduous day; 2 legs, 8 hours total. Should be a pretty tough workload, but I just can't wait to get it all done already. Almost there... almost there...

Yesterday

Yesterday was cake compared to today. Wow.. this last flight really made something out of me. Normally, a Cessna 172 wouldn't make it this far, but this airplane has extended fuel tanks which increase it's range... and boy, did we need every gallon of fuel on board. We had about an hour left when we landed, but that's just the bare minimum I want in my tanks when I land.

The plan was to wake up at 5am... we woke up at 730am. We took off to the airport right away and grabbed some grub along the way. Once we entered through the gate and onto security came the questions, "why do you both have knives?" Damn! Please don't take them away! We need them! After explaining that it was part of our survival gear and we needed them in case of a crash, they let us through. We continued onto the terminal with the rest of the passengers. I'm really glad they didn't take the knives and leatherman away, but it felt odd having a weapon in the terminal.

We continued to the airplane and started it up right away. Set everything up and a few minutes lated, we hit the skies. About 2 minutes into the flight we see the land drifting behind us. It will be over 5 hours before we can even see another piece of land; 6 hours before we fly over land (South America). Needless to say, this was a LONG leg. It is for this reason that I am eternally grateful that my friend Rob was able to tag along. We switched controls (flying the airplane) every 30 minutes or so because we knew it wasn't gonna be easy. We saw a few ships along the way, which made me think those guys had more balls than we did. Open ocean? Just like that? Wow! I also have MAD respect to all the pioneers of aviation (Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart, etc.). That was no easy feat they both attempted.

Once we get over land, we land and square away everytihng with customs, immigration, and fuel. This place, French Guiana, appears to be French property... and it's EXPENSIVE!! The dollar sucks here! For a 20 minute cab ride, it cost me a mind-boggling $90 (with tip)!! I recently stayed at Aria in Las Vegas and the small hotel room I got at this place is the same price! Needless to say, this place is hurting the wallet right now... thankfully all expenses are being paid for or being reimbursed. 

Oh, and no one here speaks English. Ok, that's not true, there have been two people that speak it quite well, but the majority only knows very few words. The cool part is that I've had a great chance to practice my French, and may I say, it isn't bad! I've had some pretty good conversations with the people at customs, the fueler, and the cab driver... the cabby even said my French was pretty good, and that with practice it will be perfect.. Aww, isn't that sweet.

Well, kids, it's time to hit the hay. Tomorrow we're entering Brazil... and I remember watching City of God and it doesn't look all dandy and what not. It's definitely gonna be an adventure tomorrow. Thankfully, we're done with the water stuff... bring on the jungle, baby!

Cheers!

Message in a Bottle

I've gone through 6 pairs of boxers. There's 2 left. The humid weather doesn't help with the rest of my clothes. Must come up with a plan..

I woke up today at 10am. Rob was at the Doctors office and apparantly there was something wrong with his urine results.. C'mon! That never happens! Why now? Whatever. It was all in the clear an hour later. We check out of our hotel room, leave our bags at the bell desk, and take a stroll to get some brunch. We need our energy if we're gonna be hand-flying an airplane for the next few hours. We eat and head straight to the airport.

Blast off! We takeoff . We're en-route to Barbados. I figured it was probably a better decision than Trinidad & Tobago and the storms lingering around the islands. 

We're in cruise and make the best of it. First, it was awesome seeing the number 1 airport in the world, as far as cool factor goes. Princess Juliana Airport in St. Marteen. Google it and you will see why this airport is so cool. I was hoping we could make a pit stop there, but as it were, we were already behind schedule... next time. Oh, there WILL be a next time!

Immediately after Princess Juliana we see an airport that falls within the top 3 of most dangerous airports. Man, was I tempted to land there. Unfortunately, the French authorities made a new law that required pilots to get special training just to land there. That's the only airport in the world that requires a license just to land at the airport! Ok, so basically, it's a super short runway and has a very steep hill on one end of it. St. Barts (or St. Barths) airport. Google it or youtube it. There's some cool stuff about it out there.

Ok, ok, ok.. right after we pass St. Barts, I decide to drop a message in a (Gatorade) bottle. I wrote that I wanted a friend from another part of the world, wrote down my email and threw, threw the paper in the tightly sealed bottle, and chucked it out the airplane. Ok, sure it might not be the most eco-friendly thing to do, but I was willing to sacrifice the enormous ocean with my little bottle. How cool would that be, if I got an email from someone?

A few French territories pass and a few hours later and we're in Barbados. I get there with absolutely no plans or paperwork. I told myself, enough with these "handlers," which charge an absurd amount just to fill out some forms for you... I failed. Eventually, customs told me to get an agent to do the paperwork for me and I was forced to talk to this one sly guy. He was pretty cool in the end and only charged me half of what his company normally charges. He pockets the money and I save a ton of it, so it's win-win!

We get to our hotel, drop off our bags and go in search for food. The front desk directs us to a sports bar and get this, it's ALL hockey! Hockey! In hot-ass Barbados! It had a bunch of Ottawa Senators stuff, so we inquired about the whole hockey theme. It turns out that the owner of the sports bar is also the owner of the Ottawa Senators! Crazy shit! Well, I stayed there as a consolation for having my Ducks beat the Senators in the 2007 Stanley Cup Finals... but that's another story.

Tomorrow comes French Guiana, a country in South America that only until recently, knew existed. It's going to be the longest flight of this journey and it's also going to have some of the worst weather. So let's just say I'm not all amped up about it... but fuck it. Here goes nothing!

Cheers!

Poprocks & Coke

Captain's log. May 25th. Crap! As I typed the date, I realized it was my mom's birthday. I'll call her tomorrow... Let's try this again...


Captain's log. May 25th. The weather God's are angry, my friends. It's the undeniable truth. Tornadoes are taking their big hand of destruction and wiping through the states with no remorse. Meanwhile, it's rain season all along our flight path. As if that wasn't enough, I seem to be behind on all the paperwork required. This sucks... but in the end, I won't complain. This is an epic adventure.


Today we woke up 10 minutes before check out time (noon). Man, it felt good! It was some much needed sleep. We leave our bags at the bell desk and go get some grub. We had some local food the previous night, so what do we get this time? Wendy's. As we head out we realize the beach was only a block away from our hotel. It's a gorgeous day, too! Little did we know that it was about to take a turn for the worse.


We eat and head back to the hotel lobby to figure out all the logistics for our flights. Right away, as I was squaring up issues with Brazilian officials, I came to realize that my "co-pilot" didn't have a current medical certificate. This put a halt to our plans.






We scramble to see what we could do. You see, because we couldn't get a Brazilian visa in time for this trip, we are working it out so that we enter the country as "crew members" of a vessel/airplane. However, part of the certification required for a pilot is a VALID medical certificate. This is what Robert (my "co-pilot) didn't have, at least not for commercial operations. Thankfully we were in a US territory, so maybe there was a doctor nearby who could administer the medical exam... there wasn't.


So the next thing we do is start calling the U.S. Virgin islands, which lie at about a 30 minute flight to the East from San Juan. Luckily we find a doctor there. However, we wouldn't make it by the time he left the office and he was booked up the following day. We explain the situation to the receptionist, she puts us on hold and comes back with good news. Success! The doctor is willing to come in early to accommodate us. Cool, dude (a la Michelle from "Full House")!


So we head to the airport, ready to take a short flight to St. Thomas. After I pay all the fees I call to update my departure time. I ask the guy to give me an updated briefing... Gulp! There's a thunderstorm just South of us and slowly moving right into our flight path. He says, "It looks strong and doesn't look like it's dissipating." F word! I tell him to change my departure time to a later time because I don't want to leave in the next fifteen minutes and hit the storm. He says that if I leave within 15 minutes, I should miss the storm. I take his advice and run out to the airplane, where Rob was already putting stowing our luggage.


I hear thunder. I go on double-time. I check the fuel and the essentials and start up. Let's go!


We takeoff, curious as to what will come of it all. The weather briefer said that St. Thomas was clear, so I should be in the clear as soon as I left the Puerto Rico island. 10 minutes of flying through gray clouds and bam, we were in the clear. Phew!! Oh, and did I mention I was wearing my life jacket en-route? Yeah, I was flying real low to the ocean.. you never know when shit may hit the fan.






A short time later, we land at St. Thomas. We go to the FBO (the place where private airplanes park) and are greeted by cool people. As Rob pays for the landing fees and what not, they give us a door prize, complimentary gifts for pilots... 2 bottles of aged rum! Score!!! They wouldn't do that in the US.. these people obviously know what's up.


So here we are again, in the hotel. After a day of chillin here and grabbing some grub, it's time to head to bed and see what tomorrow brings... still not sure where we'll end up. Trinidad & Tobago or Barbados...

Folsom Prison Blues

Wow... The past 48 hours have been pretty hectic! I love it! Nah, actually, I'm kidding myself. This trip turned out to be WAY more work than I had anticipated.

2 words.... no autopilot!

So here's how it's been going down--"don't let me dooooown"--and for the record, singing random songs has kept me sane...

SATURDAY/SUNDAY

OK! So I leave Las Vegas on Saturday night. It was a red-eye flight to Raleigh, NC (where I was to pick up the airplane). Normally I can sleep in airplanes, but this flight sucked. Whatever! I get to Atlanta where I wait for the connecting flight and again, no sleep. Now it begins to look like I won't be able to fly it down to Florida as I had originally planned. No biggie, except my buddy was going to be out there waiting for me.. Oh well. I needs mah sleep, yo!

So I finally get to Raleigh and meet with the client. This guy looked like a mix between Santa on vacation and Paul Bunyan-meets-the-city. Seriously, this guy was a 300+ pound guy; tall; with hands that can crush walnuts with ease. He had a gray beard that obeyed no beard laws. It was just doing its own thing, even on the neck area. Oh, and he was balding from the top... but that didn't stop him from keeping it real with his mini ponytail. At any rate, this guy was cool. We meet and I tell him that I couldn't sleep on the red-eye, so he gets me a hotel where the airplane is located. It's in a small town outside of Raleigh. This town’s population is 5,000 at most. We meet and talk business for an hour or two and I head back to my hotel with a beat up 1993 Ford Taurus (a la Conan O'Brien) that he let me borrow. I slept for 7 hours straight before a hotel worker decided to accidentally walk into my room. This occurred at 7pm... it would be over 30 hours before I would sleep again. 

MONDAY

I take off from NC. Destination? Ft. Lauderdale (with a fuel stop in Savannah, GA). I takeoff on early Monday morning.. first leg of a very long trip. All goes well until I get to my first destination. I do my thing, fuel up and get ready to go... then, the airplane won't start. The propeller won’t even move. “Uh, John (the Paul Bunyan dude), I think we need a new starter or battery.” I stay out there for an hour, in the nasty humid heat, trying all my McGuyver tricks. Nothing works. The battery works well, so it must be the starter. I fiddle with the prop (again), and then it starts back up! Success!! I instantly takeoff and head to Florida.

En route I get to see where the space shuttle takes off and lands… pretty cool stuff! Anyway, I get to my destination and still have lots to do. First I get the essentials. I rent a raft and get some other small items that we might need for the trip. Secondly, I attempt to taxi the airplane to a maintenance shop on the other side of the airport, so that they can fix whatever bug is wrong. But guess what… once again, it won't start. Fuck! The mechanic comes over and it's just my luck, I can’t get the airplane to duplicate the problem. I was there for half an hour. I felt like a liar whom just wasted a mechanics time. What are you gonna do? We just left it like that. He wished me good luck on the trip.

Finally I get to my hotel room and meet up with Rob. He’s an old buddy of mine from my days in Las Vegas. He decided to join me on this flight just for fun… I didn’t realize how important he’d be to the flight. At any rate, I get to the hotel only to realize that I had several hours of work ahead of me. I stay up until 1:30am prepping for tomorrow’s adventurous flights.

TUESDAY

Rob wakes me up at 5:30am. I'm dead tired! Our plan was to be at the airplane by 6am and takeoff by 7am…. we takeoff a little after 8am. On our way out from the hotel we get a copy of USA Today and see the front page article about pilots and fatigue. Hmm, an omen or a challenge? I'm going with the latter.

We get our clearance and takeoff over Miami. I do my best to throw trash over the American Airlines Arean. As we pass it, we see the last of the good US of A. What’s ahead is nothing but water and some views that these pictures… well, damn, you just had to be there to truly enjoy the beauty. The water changed color from a deep purple to a light cyan. It was really a thing of beauty, the Caribbean.

After passing the Bahamas and seeing a series of both, inhabited and uninhabited islands, we finally made it to our destination- Turks & Caicos! It was pretty neat! I was surprised that jetBlue and several other American airlines flew in there. It felt good. I didn’t feel too away from home. We fuel up and get ready to depart to Puerto Rico, but my dumb butt forgot to let customs know of our arrival (the US is picky about airplanes landing in their territory just out of the blue. Hah! Get it? No? No?! meh!). This leads to a lot of paperwork, an hour delay, and a headache. Needless to say, we got things straightened out and we took off. After 30 minutes of flying, we begin seeing nothing but gray clouds and the deep blue sea. This leg of the trip took us over water for 3 hours, with the closest land (Dominican Republic) being over 100 miles away. This is the main reason we had a raft on board. The flight was just long and arduous, but a few times we did see a couple ships! Hmm, Jack Sparrow perhaps? I mean, it DID look like the Black Pearl... it just had a little more bling, you know? Anyway, I begin to get sleepy. Time keeps dragging on. So I continue to sing the “Folsom Prison Blues” even though I don’t know more than 12 words of the song. Poor Rob.

It becomes painstakingly hard to keep my eyes open, so Rob continues to fly while I catch some much-needed Z’s… aaah, feels good! We encounter some bad weather on the way in, but that’s cool! There’s nothing like being dead tired and shooting a precision approach with bad weather at an unfamiliar place (sarcasm). No really, though.. it was actually pretty cool once we saw land. The whole water thing was starting to get old.

So here we are. We are in our hotel room in San Juan, Puerto Rico.  We’re planning our trip through the remaining islands in the Caribbean. This time we’re gonna rest! I don’t care if we get delayed a day, damn it! I am going to sleep tonight!

Amor y paz!

Cheers!!!

Brainstew

Need to pick up the airplane from a town near Raleigh, NC.

Took a red-eye flight from Las Vegas. Couldn't sleep in the crappy AirTran airplane. Fuck you AirTran! Your seats suck! Sure, you offer $5 wi-fi... alright, that's cool... but.. but.. but your seats suck! Yeaaahh.. take that!

Stuck in Atlanta until my connecting flight decides to takeoff.

40 hours with only 5 hours of sleep. It's impossible to sleep at the airport.. well, at least without a pillow... and some eye shades... and a bed!

I think I'm going to get a hotel in Raleigh and delay the whole thing an extra day.

No sleep and crappy food makes me Miguel go crazy!