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| fantastic welcome in San Salvador by the local aeroclub |
Lost track of time but seem to remember that today is the 11th
of April.
After a short rather noisy night we arrived at the airport just after
6.30 am. The plan was to fly a short distance to Libera, refuel and head
straight all the way to Mexico.
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| climb out of Pavas, San Jose |
But arriving at Pavas we were warned that immigration and
customs in Libera are not as efficient and quick as here and we would not be
allowed to only fuel stop there having cleared immigration here. Hm….
Then the suggestion of why not go via San Salvador was
thrown into the already complicated pot.
Sure, it’s dam en route and would be brilliant, BUT so far
we had been told that there was no Avgas available in San Salvador. That’s why
we had crossed it out from the routing altogether for a long time.
Sadly Pavas does not have any wifi and our UK phones seem to
be on strike anywhere in this huge region to allow us international phone calls
– whatever we use as a dial code. Mike – our saviour in most tricky situations
so far – wasn’t here yet, so we were a bit stuck getting any further with info.
But then the airport manager and another flight caption both
assured us that MSSS Illopango in San Salvador would have Avgas. Checking on the
Baja bushpilots country info, that little airport was reported as a friendly and
useful stop over place but the page didn’t mention specifically whether we could
get 100LL there or not.
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| an empty cabin, missing the balloon |
After 2.30 hrs of screwing around, writing up new flight
plans, new routings, new weather updates and checking back with our Panamanian
support FBO, we are finally set for take off just after 9am.
Our aviation friends are all waving to us and grabbing the
last shots of this rare aeroplane before we disappear on a sharp right turn
past the mountains and now heading north-west.
our friends taking pictures from our take off
As we hardly had breakfast it’s time to feed my team with
pate and cheese sandwiches, bananas and chocolate. Sadly the Beech doesn’t have
a coffee machine on board.
I am now feeling rather lost here in this big open passenger
cabin, as the balloon is left behind! In fact the Beech is now so light that
Flippie had to recalculate the weight-and-balance and took some of the luggage
and oil canisters out from the nose to put them in the back. Our million of
bags are scattered around the floor.
Packing and unpacking all this junk (which is sadly still
all essential travel and flying kit) is a tedious task for all of us and as we
always arrive mid-late afternoon to any hotel and only spend one night, there
is never time to get any laundry done.
The last days have been tough and we all feel rather
exhausted and a bit stressed. Talking to Mike just before take off about the confusing different
reports on what to do and how to do things, he says that’s ‘normal’ in Central
America.
And this doesn’t just apply to a weird bunch of foreigners travelling
in a vintage aeroplane with a balloon on board, this applies to locals alike.
For everything you want to do or get, you have to run to a dozen of different
offices and beg and wait… Patience and keep smiling seem to be the only answer.
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| taxing into Illopango |
So, I am typing this again whilst at 10,500ft just passing
over the coastline of eastern Nicaragua. It’s chilly up here and I have wrapped
myself in long trousers and my jacket. Let’s see what our refuelling stop in
San Salvador will bring and then immigration at Mexico.
Well, what can I say? San Salvador was incredible!! At first
it looked a little bit threatening with lots of military around us and we had
to clear immigration despite the fact that we just wanted to refuel.
But all
was quick and efficient and we were soon moved onto the Ilopango Aeroclub where
lots of young cadets and flight trainees were keen to see the aeroplane.
The
president of the Aeroclub greeted us and an interesting member on his fancy
motorbike pulled up and told us his stories.
Such an aeroplane hasn’t been seen here for a long long time
either, so interest in Betty the Beech was great. Avgas was indeed readily
available and not a problem at all!
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| what an enthusiastic great welcome in San Salvador |
A shame we had to rush so much as the
clubhouse looked so inviting and everybody wanted to hear our story. In the
meantime Barcelona was playing Real Madrid and the boys had a good lunch break
by the looks.
Half way down the taxiway we got a call from ATC reminding
us that we had forgotten our little step box for getting into the
aeroplane! A climb out over the hazy
mountains brought us quickly into quite threatening cloud and even strong rain.
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| Shit weather!! |
Luckily we were in the good hands of a very experienced pilot who brought us
safely back out of this misery and once I detected the coastline of Guatemala I
felt a lot better! Thank you Flippie!
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| border between Guatemala and Mexico |
Heading now for Mexico we came over the border at only
3000ft. The humidity and heat in the cabin exuberated by late afternoon
thermals pushed me to my limits of enjoying aeroplane flying. I was ever so
glad to touch down in the border city of Tapacula.
But what a difference to our previous landing? Here in
Tapacula we were welcomed by 3 heavily armed policemen, a German shepherd sniffing
dog and some more very official and pretty stern looking security and custom
guys. It felt more like landing in a prison than anywhere else.
Luckily we had Alexjandro – our local FBO manager - who
kindly explained the procedures on entering Mexico by private aeroplane:
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| Flippie and the beach in Mexico |
1.
Offload ALL your luggage (lucky indeed that the
balloon wasn’t on board anymore!)
2.
Show all your various paperwork, licences,
passports etc.
3.
Walk to the small terminal. Get your luggage
scanned.
4.
Take back the stuff that you don’t need back to
the aeroplane.
5.
Wait for the paperwork to be completed. In the
end we found that our world-wide insurance policy was perfectly acceptable here
for the Mexicans and we didn’t need any additional insurance (this had been the
big unknown factor for the last days!)
All in all it wasn’t too bad in the end and by 5pm we were
in a taxi driving the 18km to downtown Tapacula to the wonderful Casona Maya
Mexciano. What an incredibly quirky and off-the-wall this little boutique hotel
was.
Art deco and collections of old paintings and wood carvings
everywhere amongst a refreshing green little garden with a mini pool.
Too small
to really swim any loops but at least a nice little refreshing moment.
A great dinner at the hotel was sadly tainted by various
huge problems concerning the final parts of this trip: we still need to find a
way to fill in the EAPIS for entering the US, Flippie still has to work on
flight planning for the long sector tomorrow to Braunsville, we need to fill in
the Gendec, I have to do this blog and find us a hotel in Braunsville and so on
and on.
It’s already 10pm now as we have another hour’s time change but we are
supposed to have breakfast at 6 again to start early in order to avoid the bad
weather in the afternoons.
It’s tough, it’s very tough and we are all very knackered
and we haven’t had the chance to wash our clothes for several days, so don’t
put your nose out here ok?
