Up Up And Away!
Headed out to Nicolas’s house this morning to meet up to go to the airport for our flight into the rainforest. We met up with Sergio (from the NGO) and Alejandro (filming for us) at the airport, we went to pay for our charter and discovered that although it was an internal flight, we still needed our passports… Which typicaly we’d left at Nicolas’s, we thought it’d be safer not to carry them round the rainforest if we didn’t have to LOL! So, in true Monty Python style, Simon, Nicolás and I got a cab back to his place and picked them up, span round and cabbed it back to the airport! Luckily, the nature of a charter dictates, that when 4 of the 5 passengers are delayed… so is the flight PHEW!
Anyway, we said our hellos and goodbyes to Sergio, he was on a later plane, so we’d catch up with him later. We headed out onto the tarmac, where we rounded a corner to see a teeny tiny plane – a 6 seater Cessna, (including the pilot!) I was getting really nervous/excited now as we were really about to head out into the rainforest itself. It all seemed so real and incredibly exciting… and hot! After another passport check at the plane by the airport guard/policeman? and his gorgeous German Shepherd we finally borded and were on our way.
We had an incredibly smooth flight all the way, I was expecting a lot more bumpiness, but it was really smooth – well, except for Alejandro! His chair hadn’t been bolted in right, so when the plane took off, he went shooting backwards, and it shot forwards on landing… confidence inspiring :) But he laughed it off… while filming, Si & he both had camcorders out for most of the trip… (promise to figure out how to put video clips on here when I get a chance)
Out of the city…
Over the mountains…
And cloud Forest
And then over the rainforest
And the rivers…
It was really beautifull, Alejandro and Nicolas pointed out all the rivers and the different regions until finally the ‘Broccolli’ below us began to look more like trees as we descended and made a really good landing on the strip in the centre of the town, with a few beeps of the horn to clear the way ;-)
As we turned round and tootled along to the Parking Place / Airport you could feel the heat and humidity enveloping you before we even got out of the plane.