The Flight from Alabama to Brazil; Angel Falls, Take I

I realize that this is out of order and much out of date, but I would like to summarize as much of my adventure as possible in this more generally accessible format. So I will start at the beginning and go from there: I was the third of five children --- no, no, no -- I must not start THERE!

Bob and I weighed our baggage and ourselves and, together with 48 gallons of fuel (100 octane low-lead) in the wing tanks and another 20 gallons in the reserve tank (a neoprene bladder lashed to the rear seat and connected cleverly to the main fuel line via an access just to the right of the co-pilot). Our total take-off payload (that includes fuel, because with no fuel, there is no pay!!) was 938 pounds. That is about 150 pounds more than the certified take-off weight for the 1963 Mooney. But, a few extra pounds just means it takes a longer runway to get this thing off the ground -- we had done it before in 1991 from the same airstrip (Madison County airport just north of Huntsville) with about the same baggage plus a 165 pound student from St. Croix.
We had intended this first day (Sunday 25 Feb) to fly to Nassau or one of the other Bahamian islands. Thunderstorm activity along the Florida peninsula and the headwinds we encountered therein resulted in a 5 1/2 hour flight (some of it with me flying on instruments only!) with only Boca Raton FL acheived. So we negotiated the free use of a fine Pontiac Grand Am from the people running the general aviation service there and drove to a nearby mall where we had a fish dinner that would be hard to beat and stayed overnight in a Fairfield Inn -- a Ramada offshoot that had very comfortable beds and a not-so comfortable price tag.

Monday found us winging our way through mostly smooth air over broken clouds below us to the Dominican Republic, landing at Santo Domingo. We followed the advice of the taxi driver to take us to a `clean, not-too-expensive´ a hotel/motel. What we got was like a Motel 6!! But we were tired and slept anyway -- no bed-bugs were noted.

In the process of trying to file our flight plan from Santo Domingo to Aruba, we were confronted by a skeptical bureaucracy who didn´t believe our pilot licenses were valid! Bob´s was issued in 1992 and mine showed an issue date of 1972 (when it was re-issued because I had moved to my present address in Seattle)! We argued (finally fruitfully) that US pilots´ licenses do not expire -- they may be confiscated and cancelled by the FAA but otherwise are good for life (providing the life is not too criminal!!).

Landing in Aruba I faced a quartering 35-40 knot head/cross wind. Bob thought I was going to be way too high, but when I throttled the engine back at an altitude of about 500 feet, we dropped down almost like an elevator and landed just a little down from the hash-marks at the very first part of the runway! I landed a little faster than Bob likes to touch down but he admitted afterwards that with the wind, it was a good thing. We had to apply considerable throttle to go against the wind taxiing up to the general aviation station.

In Aruba we stayed at the Talk of the Town hotel, a very fine resort-type hotel on the edge of town (Oranjestad) close to the airport. We walked into town and had a good evening meal at the German Villa. This is the only German cuisine restaurant that I have seen in my travels back and forth between Alabama and Brazil. It was very good -- the sauerkraut that came with my Bratwurst had a strange, but delicious flavor.

We did not look for bodies while in Aruba, but took off into very promising skies on the route to Boa Vista Brazil, via Angel Falls. Oh what joy to be flying someone else´s airplane: the fun of flying without the drain on the billfold!

Out of Aruba and over Venezuela's high country, called "the Tepui's" (we'd call them "mesas" in this country) we sought once again, with improved intelligence, to spot the elusive Angel Falls. Behold! with the help of a hand-drawn sketch copied from a Venezuelan tourist website we were able to spot the little nook in the side of a long canyon wall from whence Angel Falls burst forth. See our best photo of it at the right! The Falls may be discerned by following the river visible on top of the Tepui near the top center of the photo, as it zig-zags its way towards the cliff, first to the right and then the dark streak towards the left, like a crack heading directly toward the cliff. The Falls is that pale and fuzzy vertical streak emanating from the dark side of the cliff in the center of the photo, directly downstream of that crack.. This isn't as impressive as the ones on the Venezuelan website but February and March are the dry season in this part of the tropics and we felt fortunate to get this view in any case! Besides, its OUR picture!! (The white areas, which look like snow, are cloud reflections on the side window of the Mooney.)

Also spotted were the tops of this Tepui pictured here. At about 8.000 to 8,500 feet above sea level, it is a very forbidding looking place! The top surface looked like dry, bare rock (I believe it is sandstone) with the parallel cracks leading downhill to the canyon containing the river fed by Angel Falls as well as another lesser falls, upstream on the main river, but not visible to us as we flew in the area. We did not note our altitude, but believe we were at about 10,00o feet when these pictures were taken.