Hi Curt! I was in Perú just a "few days" ago, in November 2005, where I took a tour of southern Perú and a dip to the southern amazon basin in the area close to Puerto Maldonado, near the bolivian border.
In Nasca we flew over the Nasca lines in a Cessna 185 Skywagon from the 60's. That was one of the highlights for me, although all the others felt sick after flying 45° turns for about a half hour (in order see the lines better). The flight to Puerto Maldonado however was 'only' in an A320 Airliner. Less fun than your flight in the :-) I published some of my photos of the trip on my website. Not many aviation related ones, though. So if your interessted anyway take a look (amazon pictures are on the last page): http://www.akermann.org/articles/peru.php Mark Curtis L. Olson wrote: > I suspect that most of you probably don't care too much about my life > story, but it's Saturday night, things are slow, I just got back from > seeing "End of the Spear", so it's movie review and story time. > If anyone wants to know where my love of aviation comes from go see > this movie. I've never flown in a cub myself, but as a kid I've flown > to similar remote regions of the amazon jungle in a Helio Super > Courier both wheeled and floated, and once even in a WWII vintage > Catalina. Even though I've lived in the USA for many years now, I > still have some jungle blood pumping through my veins. If you want to > see some great Piper Super Cub footage, and some pretty intense bush > flying, it's there in the movie. These guys were doing this back in > the 50's with no gps, probably few or no navaids, and flying over > hundreds of miles of raw jungle where if you went down, you literally > would never be found. The movie is about missionaries and does have > some religious undertones, but it doesn't get in your face about it. > They don't stop the movie in the middle and pass around an offering > plate or anything like that. :-) It tries to be an inspirational > story about halting endless cycles of violence and finding ways for > peace to emerge -- something this world could use just a bit more of > if you ask me. The movie is a true story, and from what I know and > what I've heard, and based on what I've seen in my own life, it does a > pretty good job of being right on. > > The movie takes place in Ecuador. I was born in Peru, one country > south of there, but the trees, the animals, the rivers, the clouds, > the weather, the terrain, the houses, the people ... are all very > similar between Ecuador and Peru, and the movie does an excellent job > of capturing an authentic view of all of these things. In 1999 I was > able to travel back to Peru for a 2 week visit with my wife and > brother and parents. As part of that, my wife and I were able to take > a small float plane (another helio courier) way up to the Alta-Maranon > in Northern Peru and spend the night in a community that was at least > as remote as the one in the movie. On that same trip we got to visit > the small village where my crazy parents were living when I celebrated > my first birthday. We got to run up and down the maranon river in a > speed boat--the same river my dad used to run up and down back in the > day. I remember once when I was about 5 we were heading up some > pretty significant rapids in his boat and had a prop strike halfway up > and broke the shear pin (which is what attaches the prop to the drive > shaft.) That was the day I learned my dad could change a shear pin > faster than a nascar pit crew can change a tire ... well once he dug > the replacement out of the jar holding all his spare nuts and bolts... > > Picture time: > > Here's a shot out of the front window of a Helio. The pilot was > attempting to sneak us under the cloud layer and over the oncoming > ridge ... however as you can see if you look closely, there are > places where the clouds extend below the ridge. We snuck through ok, > whew! That wasn't the only tight spot we got ourselves in on that > trip... > > http://www.flightgear.org/~curt/tmp/ridge.jpg > > Here's a picture of me when I was a geeky kid, probably about 12 years > old. It shows some uncanny parallels to the movie. Come to think of > it, I even had a pet bird similar to the one in the movie: > > http://www.flightgear.org/~curt/tmp/plane-curt.jpg > > So there you go. I'm a pretty odd mix of different cultures and > background, not really feeling 100% at home anywhere. I'm a white guy > who looks very out of place in the jungle, but a jungle boy who feels > very out of place in frozen Minnesota ... fondly remembering the days > of my youth when I couldn't have told you the last time I put on a > pair of shoes. > > Curt. > ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Do you grep through log files for problems? Stop! Download the new AJAX search engine that makes searching your log files as easy as surfing the web. DOWNLOAD SPLUNK! http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid3432&bid#0486&dat1642 _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
