From High Up

Flying and Travels

Pueblos de Plata

Another year and the 9th trip to Mexico. We planned for 12 airplanes and ended up having that many, in spite of the very untimely AD affecting Continental engines, which caused one participant to drop out. I always encourage people to sign up for the wait list, because we invariably have one or two cancellations, sometimes the week before. This year was not different.

The theme of the trip was Silver Towns and we visited four of them. First Alamos, then Guanajuato, then San Miguel de Allende, to finish in Zacatecas. What an itinerary to accomplish in 8 days! This is truly Cirrus Life.

As is often the case, it didn’t start without troubles. Our initial meeting point was Tucson on Saturday, February 18, for a group flight to Ciudad Obregon and Alamos on Sunday. About 20 minutes from Tucson, I heard a bang and increased noise. After checking all engine parameters and aircraft control, I quickly determined this was a mushroom fairing that detached. I had the same thing happen 8 years ago, although with more noise. At that time it was under the main left gear, this time it was on the right side.


Nothing that can’t be fixed with some duct tape.

As soon as I arrived in Tucson, I learned that one participant who had arrived earlier on Saturday in Ciudad Obregon had a bad battery and couldn’t start the engine for a short flight to Alamos. Finding a battery on a Saturday evening is not an easy task, unless you know somebody who has it. I was already talking to Roger Whittier about my mushroom fairing, so I asked him if he happened to have a spare battery. He did have it in his hangar in Glendale. The next question was how to get that battery from the Phoenix area to Ciudad Obregon. That turned out to have an easy answer also, because one participant was planning to fly from Phoenix to Ciudad Obregon on Sunday morning. He graciously offered to drive to Roger’s hangar Saturday night to pick up the battery and fly it to MMCN on Sunday. Local mechanic installed it and we didn’t lose anybody from the group.

Alamos

We launched as a group of 9 airplanes from Tucson to Ciudad Obregon on Sunday morning. Two airplanes flew to Alamos on Saturday (one having the battery issue there), and one flew directly from Phoenix to MMCN also on Sunday morning. The flight would be unremarkable if not for overcast skies with low visibility, which forced us to stay low due to icing threats. One airplane, a Cirrus Vision Jet, could safely ignore overcast and icing and flew IFR over the top. In spite of having sent all documents ahead of time to the airport, it still took a bit of time to process everybody, The delay would be completely unacceptable in the US, but it was quite normal for Mexico. Alamos is only about 20 minutes from Ciudad Obregon, a flight we’ve done many, many times.

Dinner at Hacienda

In Alamos, we stayed in my favorite place in the whole country, Hacienda de los Santos. If you’ve never been there, pick up the phone and make a reservation right away. There is a 5,000′ paved runway in town, and it is only a 20-minute flight from MMCN, or about 2 hours from the US border. The first night we had a rooftop party to get to know each other, followed by dinner with live music both nights. A tequila class is one class that I am proud to have failed to graduate from, so I have to take it each time I am there.

Tequila class

After a day of relaxing, it was time to launch for the flight to Guanajuato/Leon airport, which takes about 3 hours. We stayed under an overcast for the first 30 minutes and then climbed to 14,500′ for a smooth sail to the destination. 

Guanajuato

Approaching MMLO, many of us had a GPS outage, I experienced it with one of the two units, but I already saw the airport and my iPad was still getting GPS reception.

An unpleasant surprise awaited us after arrival. In spite of calling ahead of time to ensure there is enough space on the ramp, we were told to park at the FBO. FBOs in Mexico are relatively new invention, but they pop up at all major airports with an intent to extract maximum cash from all visitors. This particular one did it to the tune of $380 for 3 nights parking without any other services. What is even more appalling is the airport personel that works hand it hand (or perhaps hand under the table) to force unsuspecting visitors to pay these fees.

The city of Guanajuato was worth the visit. We stayed in a small boutique hotel, Casa del Rector with beautiful views of the city, which is laid over hills and still has working silver mines. After a short walk, we were rewarded by a truly gourmet dinner at Costal Cultura Cafeteria.

Guanajuato

The next day started with a walking tour of the city, which was very pleasant because the center is pedestrian-only, most traffic is in tunnels beneath the city. The tunnels were initially built to prevent flooding of the nearby Rio Guanajuato from damaging the city, but now they protect it from traffic.

After lunch at Casa Valadez, we took a funicularto the top of the hillside to the Monumento Al Pipila for more views of the city. In the evening, we had dinner at another Guanajuato culinary gem, El Comedor Tradicional,followed by a unique Guanajuato experience, Callejoneada, which is a walking tour of the city accompanied by a group of musicians and artists, who enliven the way with traditional Mexican and Guanajuato music, typical dances, stories, and legends that are told throughout the tour.

Callejoneada

San Miguel de Allende

There used to be a dirt airstrip in SMA. Over ten years ago, the municipality decided to pave it, and it is now a nice 4,500-foot-long runway. Unfortunately, as is often the case in Mexico, somebody didn’t pay something, some paperwork was not completed, and some contractors didn’t do the job. The runway has remained closed since. You can admire it on Google Maps, but you can’t land there.

Two buses picked us up at the hotel for an hour ride to visit Santuario de Jesús Nazareno de Atotonilco, which is sometimes called, perhaps with only slight exaggeration, the “Sistine Chapel of Mexico.” After the visit, we enjoyed a leisurely lunch at Nirvana, an oasis of calm and delicious food 15 minutes outside of SMA,

Lunch at Nirvana

We were originally planning to stay in Live Aqua, a modern hotel near the center of the town. We negotiated and signed the contract, and pre-paid all of the rooms for the group, only to learn that our reservation was cancelled about a week before the departure. To their credit, the hotel helped find alternative accommodations at the Numu Boutique Hotel, a convenient although somewhat bland newly opened hotel that is part of the Hyatt chain. A formal opening ceremony was taking place during our stay there, with numerous officials participating, which I suspect had something to do with the cancellation of the reservation at Live Aqua.

Dinner at Terazza 48

We had a dinner at Terazza 48, the restaurant chosen for the fabulous night views of the city. The next morning we went for a short walking tour of the city with a guide, which was somewhat disappointing. The guide wanted to get over it quickly and wasn’t that interesting.

Zacatecas

It is a short one hour flight from Leon/Guanajuato airport to Zacatecas, but it is a long 1.5-hour bus drive from San Miguel de Allende to the airport, all thanks to the stupidity of Mexican authorities and the closed runway in SMA. We paid the exorbitant parking fee at MMLO and launched. Approaching MMZC we all experienced a GPS outage, It seems that this is a popular setup in many towns in Mexico, and we can only speculate about reasons. In any case, it is best to be prepared with alternative means of navigation and check your iPad; it seems to be less sensitive to jamming than the onboard avionics.

Quinta Real Zacatecas

Our excellent guides from Operadora Zacatecas picked us up at the airport and drove us to the Quinta Real hotel. We had dinner with friends with whom we flew together to South America, and we promised ourselves that we would repeat that trip in winter 2024. Last time, we flew as far as Ecuador, our next trip will be the circumnavigation of the whole continent, following the west coast through Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, and Ushuaia, and then returning via Argentina, Brazil, and Caribbean islands to Florida. What a trip!

The next day, we boarded an open-roofed bus for a guided tour of the town. Founded in 1546 after the discovery of a rich silver lode, Zacatecas reached the height of its prosperity in the 16th and 17th centuries. Built on the steep slopes of a narrow valley, the town has breathtaking views, and there are many old buildings, both religious and civil. The historic center of Zacatecas has almost completely preserved the urban design of the sixteenth century, taken as a basis for further development in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 

After the tour of the center, we drove six kilometers to the town of Guadelupe, known for its silversmith center. We started by visiting the Templo de Guadelupe. and then the Museo de Guadelupe, an old Franciscan church with 27 permanent rooms; that is one of the most important Viceregal painting galleries in Mexico. Silversmith Center has a school for silversmiths and many excellent jewelry stores.

Mina el Eden

After lunch in a restaurant back in the center of Zacatecas, we drove to visit Mina el Eden, Exploration of the mine began in 1586, forty years after the founding of the city. Its heyday occurred from the 16th to 18th centuries, when production consisted mainly of silver, gold, copper, zinc, iron, and lead. Work in the mine stopped in 1960, due mainly to urbanization, flooding, and its proximity to the city. This original tourist attraction opened to the public in the early part of 1975, with some adaptations such as bridges, railway access, stairs, balconies, lighting, re-enactments of the mining, myths and legends. After exiting the mine, we boarded the Teleferico de Zacatecas, which crosses the city in just 7 minutes and offers one of the most spectacular panoramic views, to end up at Cerro de la Bufa,

Return home

It is 1336-mile straight line from MMZC to KSQL, 7.5 hours of no wind flight time, but we had strong headwinds all the time, so it was in fact 8.5 hours. If you add two stops, including one in Mexico, from leaving the hotel to getting home, it would be a 12-hour day. There was weather in the last 1.5 hours before home, but it still sounded OK.

Other than headwinds, the first two legs went without issue, even the stop in Ciudad Obregon took only about half an hour, those who fly there know it was fast. The last leg was from KCXL to KSQL, about 450 nm, almost 3 hours with 30+ knots headwinds. Weather was fine until Central Valley, but it was supposed to get nasty after Gorman. Ceilings 2000-3000 feet, tops 16,000 and icing starting at 4000. I fly a basic TKS airplane, so I need to treat the airplane as having no icing protection.

Other than headwinds, the first two legs went without issue, even the stop in Ciudad Obregon took only about half an hour, those who fly there know it was fast. The last leg was from KCXL to KSQL, about 450 nm, almost 3 hours with 30+ knot headwinds. The weather was fine until the Central Valley, but it was supposed to get nasty after Gorman. Ceilings range from 2000 to 3000 feet, with tops reaching 16,000 feet and icing beginning at 4000. I fly a basic TKS airplane, so I need to treat the airplane as having no icing protection.

On the ground, I took fuel (why not?), topped off with TKS, and did all of that in rain and cold wind. Sure enough, TKS spilled over the wing, and the fuel hose didn’t want to unwind, so when I finally got back into the airplane, I was cold, tired from a long day of flying, and ground activities. The thought crossed my mind that perhaps it would be smart to overnight in Salinas, but I was so close to home and still within my personal minima. I did that IFR flight from SNS to SQL hundreds of times, I knew I would be OK for the 15 minutes it takes at 6,000, even if I got light ice. I had outs if needed.

That all sounds like a careful analysis, right? Well, I filed, called ground, and taxied to the runway. Or so I thought.

In the mud

That’s my nose wheel in the mud, I did taxi into the grass area between two taxiways. We left the airplane, drove home (wonderful people at JetWest gave me a crew car), I returned this morning, and more wonderful people at Airmotive Specialties pulled the airplane out of it and cleaned that mud. Only luck prevented any damage.

This incident made me re-evaluate my personal minma with respect to length of light and fatigue. It was very clear to me that fatigue was the main factor in that incident, and I didn’t act on my symptoms.

2022 Viva Yucatan

This was the 8th time we set up a trip to Mexico and it was the most ambitious trip. Close to 2500 miles and it felt double, because my autopilot failed right after departure. Hand flying a Cirrus is not particularly pleasant, particularly for 30 hours. Our first destination was Brownsville TX, where we met most of the group. One participant elected to fly to Merida from Florida directly, but everybody else flew to KBRO. Initially, we were supposed to have 12 airplanes, but one had engine issues a week before departure, so they elected to join us in Merida flying commercial.

We left on Friday afternoon and flew at 17,500 to cross Sierras and landed at the North Las Vegas airport. Vegas is not our preferred location, but it is a convenient stop to spend the night. The autopilot failed during the initial climb and no amount of circuit breaker pulling made a difference.

Saturday morning didn’t start well. First, when walking to the airplane I noticed that I didn’t have my iPhone. A quick look at the Find My iPhone showed it happily travelling on a highway back to the city. I have to give it to Apple engineers that they thought about that scenario when they decided that answering a phone call doesn’t require a passcode. The taxi driver pick up and said he was “super busy” and didn’t know when he would have time to bring the phone back. A quick negotiations reversed his priorities.

Then I got a phone call from one participant, whose airplane sustained damage so much so that he wouldn’t be able to join. At that point, we already passed our cancellation deadlines, so we wouldn’t be able to provide him a refund. However, I planned to negotiate with hotels, hoping to recoup at least part of his cost.

We stopped for fuel in El Paso and after a delicious lunch at a local Subway launched for the 2nd leg to Brownsville KBRO, but not before receiving a message from another participant that his alternator 1 failed in flight. That is a required equipment per the Cirrus Kinds of Operation List, and we thought we would loose another airplane.


“Executive” terminal in Brownsville

Brownsville isn’t much of a town and I don’t think we will choose it again as a point of departure, in spite of its favorable southern location. Neither Uber nor Lyft had any cars, but we managed to call a local taxi company for a drive to a Courtyard. A local Olive Garden was too busy for our group and we ended in a burger joint.

Next day morning departure confirmed that ALT1 was definitely inoperative, but it turned out that the nearby McAllen had a Cirrus Certified Service Center, obviously closed on Sunday, but reopening on Monday morning. The pilot elected to fly there and in the meantime discovered that it was the field current jumper that snapped. A fix would be easy.

Everybody else departed for a three hours flight to Minatitlan MMMT. My usual stop for that itinerary is Veracruz MMVR, but with 10 airplanes, we needed a handler, so that all our paperwork and in particular multi-entry permits were prepared ahead of time. Few years back we didn’t do that and an entry through Oaxaca was taking hours. Assuming 30 minutes for one permit and 10 airplanes, you can easily see how long it takes if done serially. Veracruz handlers were ridiculously expensive, so we decided to switch to Minatitlan.

Passing through 5000′, I saw 40 knots headwind, but at 11,000′ it was only 12 knots. We were above overcast most of the time on an IFR flight plan. 25 miles from Minatitlan tower said “Below 8000, you are in uncontrolled airspace, cleared for VOR/DME runway 10”. Great, but what about that 6000 feet mountain that I could see on the charts? We managed to descend without hitting anything and executed a full VOR/DME procedure, with a teardrop course reversal in actual conditions. I was glad to be proficient with hand flying.

Our handler in Minatitlan did a splendid job and all processing was done in record time, less than an hour for all airplanes. And that is when we learned that the fuel truck was not working. The only fuel truck. A specialist was called and after half an hour, he managed to fix it. In the meantime, , e looked at other options, but we definitely didn’t have enough fuel to get to Merida.

Hacienda Temozon

Arrival to Merida was uneventful, we exited the airplane and were picked up by the arranged mini-buses, which drove us to the Hacienda Temozon. A margarita and a nice dinner later, we all went to bed early tired after a long flight.

On Monday a bus picked us at 9 am for visiting of Maya site in Uxmal. It was a 45 minutes drive for a guided tour of the impressively well restored ruins. The site is the most important representative of the Puuc architectural style, which flourished in the Late Classic Period (AD 600–900).

Pyramid of the Magician at Uxmal

Quite probably this style and the northern Maya lowland culture continued in full vigour for a century or so after the decline and abandonment of the southern Maya lowland centres such as TikalPalenque, and Uaxactún. After about 1000, when Toltec invaders arrived in Yucatán and established their capital at Chichén Itzá, major construction in the city ceased. According to Maya hieroglyphic records, however, Uxmal continued to be occupied and was a participant in the political League of Mayapán. When the league ended, Uxmal, like the other great cities of the north, was abandoned (c. 1450). Before abandonment, the ruling family of the city, like the Itzá of Chichén or the Cocom of Mayapán, was the Tutul Xiu.

Landrover tour

After visiting the site, we had lunch at a local restaurant and ended up with a Land Rover tour of the plantation and ruins of Hacienda Uxmal constructed in 1673.

On Tuesday, we again boarded a bus, which drove us to Merida, for a short tour of the city. Merida, capital state of Yucatan whose heritage is a rich blend of Mayan and colonial was founded in 1542 by Francisco de Montejo on the remains of the ancient Mayan city, called T’hó, which means 5 in the Mayan language.

A palace-house on Paseo Montejo

In fact, when he arrived, he found 5 Mayan temples surrounding a huge plaza and resembling the Roman ruins of the city of Merida in Extremadura, Spain, and therefore he adopted the same name. Merida of Yucatan. On our tour of the city, we drove along Paseo Montejo, which is a gorgeous tree-lined avenue stretching from the Santa Ana neighborhood ending with the grand and unmissable Monumento a la Patria. The incredible mansions are a reminder of the wealth that was in the Yucatan during the 19th century. At one point Merida was home to the most millionaires in the world, wealth created by processing and export of locally grown henequen, a fibrous plant from which twine and rope are produced. Our tour of the city ended with a lunch at the Kuuk restaurant.

Dinner at Chable

We returned back to Temozon after lunch to rest a little before our dinner escapade to Ixi’im restaurant at the Hacienda Chablé. Overseen by chef Jorge Vallejo (whose Mexico City restaurant Quintonil was named one of the World 50 Best), using organic, seasonal ingredients that are often sourced from the expansive on-site gardens; Ixi’im is lit up like a jewel box at night. Set among trees, the stone ruins of one of the hacienda’s buildings have been attached to a glass dining room lined with the owner’s 5000-strong collection of vintage tequila bottles.

Wednesday was a short flying day. We boarded again a bus, which drove us back to Merida airport. Departure formalities took surprisingly long considering it was a domestic flight and we all had flight plans prepared. A twenty minutes flight brought us the Chichen Itza airport.

Conga line of Cirrus flotilla on the way to MMCT

No paperwork on arrival, we boarded a bus to drive to Mayaland hotel for a check in and almost immediately returned to the bus to drive to cenote Ik-Kil. It is arguably one of the most beautiful cenotes of Mexico. The waters of Ik Kil were considered sacred by the Mayans who performed here human sacrificing to their rain god and archaeologists found there bones and jewelries.

Light show at Chichen Itza

We returned to the hotel for dinner and then drove for yet another attraction: Noches de Kulkulkan, an audiovisual presentation that describes Maya cosmogony, their particular vision about the origin of the planet and of humanity, as well as the history of this place which is one of the New 7 Wonders of the World. The light show was spectacular, pyramids gleaming in bright colors and ancient silhouettes alive projected on main pyramid side.

On Thursday morning, we departed the hotel for a visit proper of Chichen Itza ruins. Chichen Itza was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988. In 2007, the Temple of Kukulcán at Chichén Itzá has joined such famous architectural wonders as the Great Wall of China, Machu Picchu and the Taj Mahal on the list of the Seven New Wonders of the World. This impressive pyramid symbolizes the grandeur of the Mayan civilization. The greyish white colossus is 30 meters high and has exactly 365 steps to the temple at the top – this was also the number of days in the Mayan calendar.

Historians believe that Chichen Itza was founded and rose to prominence due to its close proximity to the Xtoloc cenote, an underground source of fresh water. The name Chichen Itza is a Mayan language term for at the mouth of the well of the Itza. The Itza were an ethnic group of Mayans who had risen to power in the northern part of the Yucatan peninsula, where the city is located.

After the visit, it was time for another quick flight to Cozumel. Our handler at MMCZ did a great job ushering everybody to exit and calling us taxi. A short ride to the El Presidente hotel brought us two days of sun, beach and do-nothing rest.

On Saturday night, we had a goodbye dinner at the Buccanos Beach Club hosted and invited by a COPA member, who splits his time between Florida and Yucatan. This was the end of the trip and everybody was returning home individually. We chose to stop overnight in San Luis Potosi, we never been to the city and make a second stop in Alamos, to spend a night in Hacienda de los Santos, our favorite place in Mexico.

Mexico 2022 group

Remember these problems I had with the magneto? I called the avionics shop who did the work on the airplane before departure and asked them is there anything I could do to debug the issue. They said the first thing they would try is to make sure that the autopilot was properly seated in the tray. Departing Alamos, I pushed the autopilot as hard as I could into the tray and everything returned to normal. 25 hours hand-flying the airplane and I could have loved it by a simple push!

Mexico 2020

This was already our7th trip to Mexico. This year, with a trip name México diverso we chose three very different locations, the description is under the link above.

The group met in Tucson, Arizona on Saturday 2/15/2020 for a dinner and departure to Ciudad Obregon on Sunday morning. Tucson is normally a rather quiet class C airport, but we choose to depart at the same time as the morning airline rush hour. Twelve Cirrus airplanes calling clearance and ground created lot of confusion.

I sent all the required documents ahead of time to the Commandante of Ciudad Obregon airport and when we arrived, multi-entry permits and flight plans were ready. We were in an out under an hour – for 12 airplanes – what a change compared to the mess last year in Oaxaca.

Alamos

Dinner table at Hacienda

After 20 minutes flight, we all landed in Alamos and settled in Hacienda de los Santos for well deserved margaritas and roof top party before dinner. Dinner at the Hacienda is always magical, with live music, beautiful tables and great food.

The following day, those who didn’t fly it before, went for a Copper Canyon flight. Barranca del Cobre consists of six distinct canyons in the Sierra Madre Occidental. The overall canyon system is larger and portions are deeper than the Grand Canyon in Arizona. The canyons were formed by six rivers which drain the western side of the Sierra Tarahumara. All six rivers merge into the Rio Fuerte and empty into the Gulf of California. The walls of the canyon are a copper and green color, which is where the name originates.

In the afternoon, I had a talk about our flying in Africa and the infamous fuel cap and Jim gave his great tequila class, always a favorite.

Extra fuel before leaving Alamos

The next leg was about 760 nm to Puebla, which was putting us at the edge of the range, considering that we already burned about 7 gallons coming from Cd Obregon. While it would be possible to do that flight non-stop, it is always better to be conservative when flying in Mexico, so we split the group in two halves. Those who flew Copper Canyon, flew to Durango and those who didn’t, to Zacatecas to refuel. Since refueling and paperwork is done serially, processing all 12 airplanes would take too much time if we all went to the same place.

I refueled rather quickly and got the flight plan filed first, but when we got back to the airplane and tried to start the engine, we were in for an unpleasant surprise. Zero fuel flow. All the tricks and methods for dealing with hot starts that I knew didn’t have any effects. We started to think that we might need to spend the night (or more) in Zacatecas. Finally, after 1.5 hours, fuel lines cooled enough so that the fuel condensed again and the engine started. Our electric fuel pump was recently replaced and I suspect this had a lot to do with that, plus the fact that Zacatecas is at 7,200 feet and it was 20 deg C.

Puebla

There was a SIGMET around Puebla for volcanic ash due to volcano eruption, but it turned out to be less severe than anticipated. While the visibility was reduced due to smoke, it didn’t create any flight difficulties.

Popocatépetl volcano

Two vans drove us to Azul Talavera hotel (ex Rosewood Puebla), a beautiful, modern hotel with excellent service. We walked 10 minutes to Casa Reyena for a fabulous mole poblano dinner.

Azul Talavera rooftop swimming pool

The next day we set up to explore the city with a visit to Capilla del Rosario located in Iglesia de Santo Domingo, which is considered a jewel of Mexican baroque. Its construction dates back to the 17th century and is the first in Mexico dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary. The sumptuous decoration onyx, gilded plaster, paintings and tiles lined with 22-carat gold sheets, make the chapel a unique property of its kind, which has been considered the eighth wonder of the new world and named as reliquary of America by Pope John Paul II in 1979.

Capilla del Rosario

We continued to the Cathedral on the Zócalo. Built piecemeal over almost two centuries, beginning in 1575, the church has an unusual altar and magnificent choir stalls with Moorish-inspired inlay.

Biblioteca Palofoxiana – gorgeous 17-th century library, designed to rival Europe’s greatest, is recognized by the UNESCO for being the first and oldest public library in Americas. It has more than 45,000 books and manuscripts, ranging from the 15th to the 20th century. In 2005, it was listed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register.

Biblioteca Palofaxiana

The last morning stop, Museo Amparo‘s permanent collection traces Mexico’s development over its history. It has one of the most important collections of pre-Hispanic, colonial and modern art in Mexico, with dates of pieces ranging from 2,500 BCE to the present day. The museum is housed in two colonial-era buildings that date from the 17th and 18th centuries, which were popularly known as the Hospitalario.

El Restauro

After another exquisite mole at El Restauro, we boarded the bus to drive to Museo Internacional del Barocco, which is housed in an iconic building designed by acclaimed Japanese architect Toyo Ito and which opened in February 2016. The museum presents art and culture of the Baroque age (from the early-17th century to the late-18th century) in European and Latin American societies.

Museo del Barocco

The next day we drove to Cholula and started our visit at the Church Santa María Tonanzintla. Its name comes from the Nahuatl word Place with our Lady Mother. This is one of the most viewed churches in Puebla for its indigenous Baroque or New Hispanic baroque style, consisting of an exuberant indigenous decoration; angels with feather tufts, with flower garlands, with horse attire Eagle and with fruits and plants, the church is a splendid mixture of pre-Hispanic and Christian influences.

Cholula main point of interest is the Great Pyramid with the Nuestra Señora de los Remedios sanctuary on top. At first glance, the pyramid looks like a hill as most of it is overgrown. The south side of the pyramid has been excavated and there is a network of tunnels inside, we walked part of it. Building of the pyramid began in the pre-Classic period and over time was built over six times to its final dimensions of 390 ft on each side at the base. This base is four times the size of that of the Great Pyramid of Giza and is the largest pyramid base in the Americas.

Model of Great Pyramid in Cholula, with different layers and church on top

After lunch in a local whole-in-the-wall eatery, the bus drove us back to the airport. This is the first time I experienced a true a**hole Commandante. The guy refused to take our printed flight plan, because he needed four copies and not one, refused to copy it and refused to give us blank forms to hand-write flight plans. I had a bunch of blank forms exactly for such just-in-case situations and we managed to file our flight plans to Zihuatanejo.

Arrival to the Zihuatanejo/Ixtapa airport was epic, late afternoon is the most busy time for commercial flights and between our now 13 airplanes and half a dozen airline jets, some of us had to draw doughnuts in the sky for quite a while.

Holds approaching MMZH

Ixtapa

The last two days of the trip were designed with only one objective; relax and do nothing. Cala de Mar resort has beautifully appointed rooms, each with individual plunge pool and stunning views of Pacific Ocean. I am happy to report that we not only fulfilled, but also exceeded that objective – we stayed one extra day.

View from a room at Cala de Mar

The price to pay was the return back home, perhaps foolishly I decided to do it in one day, about 1,650 nm, with landings in Los Mochis (fuel) and Calexico (fuel and immigration). That plan was only half stupid, but it became really crazy with 30 knots headwinds. I tried 10,500, 14,500 and 16,500, the ground speed remained stubbornly between 150 and 160 knots. We landed in San Carlos at 7 pm.

Mexico 2020 group

Flying in Africa – tips and tricks

Airports where I landed

I flew in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Mozambique, Tanzania, Rwanda and Kenya. This isn’t perhaps a terribly vast experience, but if you contemplate flying there, you might find the following observations useful.

  1. It is vast, it is beautiful and it is remote. Africa total area represents 20% of Earth landmass but only 16% of Earth population and you could fit there US three times over. You have to plan flights accordingly with respect to fuel and survival equipment.
  2. General aviation is incredibly bureaucratic and you need permits for each country, sometimes for individual airports. You should plan to secure those permits well ahead of time, preferably using local resources.
  3. It is very useful to have somebody in a “back office” tracking your progress and being able to help with permits, flight plans, aircraft parts while located in a place with good internet and good access to parts, mechanics and information.
  4. Plan for minimum of two hours for each stop at each airport. You may get lucky, but this is a reasonable estimate to file flight plans, pay landing fees and any other required fees, pass security checks or, if required, immigration and customs.
  5. You will get frustrated and perhaps angry at the absurdity and slowness of the processing at different airports, at having to haul you luggage thru x-ray machines, at having to file paper flight plans, at the interminable waits. Plan for that and don’t let it spoil the adventure.
  6. Don’t sweat about ATC, airspaces, prohibited, military or restricted areas. If you manage to talk to ATC, great, but if not, that’s fine too. Different airspaces exist on paper, but with the exception of few really large international commercial airports, nobody will pay any attention if you fly through them.
  7. Always call ahead to the next airport to verify they have fuel and how much. If there is fuel, top it off and top off you jerrycans if you have them. You never know when you will need it.
  8. Bring cash in US dollars, I take $300/airport. Credit cards machines are often “broken” and you will need to pay for fuel and for the fees in cash.
    Make sure you have survival equipment, PLB, satellite messenger or phone. While cell phone coverage at airports is usually quite good, you can’t count on that.
  9. Print sufficient number of copies of general declaration with your basic data, so you only need to fill departure and destination. At many airports they don’t have blank copies, but they still require that you give them gendecs.
  10. Know how to fill ICAO flight, including your equipment codes, how to put permit numbers, search and rescue requirements and estimates to FIR boundaries in remarks.
  11. Keep the duct tape and basic tools handy.

Above all, be ready to adapt your plans as the circumstances change, keep your cool and you will have the most incredible flying adventure of the whole life. I was lucky to fly there twice, feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Hakuna matata.

Great Apes in Uganda and Tanzania

This is the third part of our trip, we flew from South Africa, through Mozambique to Zanzibar and traversed Tanzania East to West. This part is about close encounters with mountain gorillas and chimpanzees, also flying without fuel cap and fuel exhaustion. We were a group of friends flying in four Cessna 182 and 206 airplanes.

We left Mbali Mbali Soroi lodge when it was still dark and witnessed sunrise while driving to the Seronera airstrip.

Serengeti at sunrise

After a short flight Mwanza, refueling, customs and immigration, this time without taking suitcases out of airplanes, we launched for Kisoro in Uganda. There are quite high mountains on the direct line, up to 14,000 feet and we decided to fly around them to the North, which was a fortunate decision, because about half an hour after departure we got into an area of low ceilings and rain with reduced visibility. Let’s just say it was marginal VFR, although I usually call something like that “African VFR”. At one point we seriously considered turning around, but Chris who was flying first called with an update that weather was improving further north and we continued.

Flight from Mwanza to Kisor

The solid red you see above, this is terrain higher than 7,000 feet. The African VFR happened about half way, so over relatively low terrain.

Bwindi Impenetrable National Park

Flying over Bwindi Impenetrable Park we could see the mountains we were to explore the next day. Landing in Kisoro was refreshingly simple, there was an immigration officer already waiting for us, he efficiently stamped our passport, we didn’t have to pay anything extra in spite of the fact that Kisoro is definitely not an Airport of Entry. There was no customs, so nobody checked our luggage. We boarded vans for an hour ride to Mutanda Lake Resort.

Lake Mutanda

Mutanda Lake is beautiful, with little islands sparkling in water and mountains around. The resort not so much, it is one of those places where internet photos are heavily photo-shopped. The next day we drove another hour to enter the park for the gorilla trekking. After a briefing about what to do when in close proximity to gorillas, we got an option to hire porters. I had just a backpack, so we thought one porter would be sufficient, but we hired two to support the village. This turned out to be the best decision of the day. The trek involved descending and climbing over very steep slopes in the jungle, lasted six hours and at the end, we were all beyond exhausted.

This snapshot from iPhone Health app says it all. Porters helped us not only with the backpack, but by literally pulling us uphill and holding us during the descents. If you ever do this trek, make sure you have one porter per person. We did manage though to get very close to the apes, within 3-5 feet and we could observe them for about an hour. They didn’t pay much attention to us and kept eating leaves. The alpha-male silverback was impressively large, even when seated. The effort spent to get that close to them made the whole experience even more precious.

Close encounter – no zoom used in with this photo

We could barely walk next day, I was feeling muscles I didn’t even know I had, descending steep inclines makes you more sore next day than climbing, but we boarded the van again for a ride back to Kisoro airstrip. This time, customs was there and insisted on inspecting every piece of luggage, which was really driving me nuts. The field is at 6,200 feet and has a terrain rising to the south. We had between 10 and 15 knots of wind coming from the south, so we decided to takeoff in that direction, which turned out to be somewhat challenging. At Vx, I had an impression that the airplane is not climbing and that we will settle in the trees. Finally, we cleared the hills and flew back over the lake for some last-minute pictures. In hindsight, it would have been preferable to take off with tailwind. The flight to Kigali, capital of Rwanda was beautiful, in spite of strong headwinds.

Refueling from drums in Kigali

On arrival the approach controller was querying us in flight about our permit numbers, upset that we were coming from Kisoro and not from Mwanza, as if that was important, told us first to turn to a heading which would send us into a hill (unable), then told us to fly a DME arc (unable, we were VFR), then told us to hold and finally switched us to tower, who cleared Robert to land while an airliner was taxing onto the runway for takeoff in the opposite direction. Clearly, Kigali is not used to VFR and light airplanes and indeed they have no avgas. We refueled from drums, which we had shipped there ahead of time and this is when I found that my left wing fuel cap was gone, again.

Remember departure from Wonderboom and losing the same fuel cap? I will never know if I was distracted and angry by the ridiculous luggage inspection in Kisoro and didn’t properly secure the cap after checking fuel level or if the cap had a problem, since it was the same one we lost in FAWB. I decided to turn this into a positive event, by promising myself I will never allow myself to become excited and emotional prior to takeoff. A mental trick I use now is to visualize that fuel cap whenever I feel I might lose focus. Lack of fuel cap presented us with two problems. How to secure the left tank and how to get from Kigali to Tabora, our next refueling point? We were supposed to fly to Kigoma (180 nm), then to Mahale (84 nm) and only then to Tabora (194 nm), total distance of 460 nm with three takeoffs, too far on only the right tank.

Universal airplane repair tools

We resolved the first issue by the universal airplane repair tool: duct tape. While I wasn’t sure it would actually prevent fuel from leaking, there was only about 8 gallons left in the left tank and I was planning to only use the right tank. As to the second issue, when we were in Mwanza, we applied another universal rule for flying in Africa: when you see fuel, you take fuel and we filled four 20 liters jerrycans, just in case, without knowing it would become so useful so quickly. Twenty gallons in jerrycans combined with forty gallons in the right tank gave me an endurance of five hours, which was cutting it a bit too close with less than 30 minutes reserve. That problem was in turn resolved by stopping at a gas station in Kigoma and filling another twenty liter jerrycan with mogas. The 206 had a STC for mogas, but Marcus warned us to use the minimum necessary – in this case, we were only mixing 8 gallons of mogas with 40 gallons of avgas so I felt this was reasonable.

The flight from Kigali to Kigoma made us overfly Burundi. While we had overfly permits, we never managed to talk to Bujumbura Approach. Half over the country is covered by a TMA, so it was theoretically required, although it didn’t bother me at all we couldn’t. When arriving to Kigoma, I was trying to raise Kigoma tower on the radio. After landing, somebody finally replied asking why we didn’t call tower. I said we did, many times, on 118.4, frequency listed on Skydemon and Jeppesen charts, to which he replied “ah yes, we recently changed it 133.5”. Flying in Africa.

We stayed one night in Kigoma Hilltop Hotel, a comfortable but uninspiring hotel on the shore of Lake Tanganyika and after another security checks, launched for Mahale, one of the most stunning parks in Tanzania, with sand beaches, behind which rises a range of imposing mountains, clad in verdant tropical vegetation.

Resting and thinking

Mahale National Park is home to around 1,000 chimpanzees. Most significantly, one group of Mahale chimps – the Mimikire clan – has been habituated by researchers since 1965. Currently led by an impressive alpha male, Alofu, the M-group, as they are commonly known, has around 56 chimps. They go where they want and when they want but are relaxed near people, so it’s possible to track and observe them from very close quarters. For the good of the chimps’ health, all human visitors on chimpanzee safaris are required to wear surgical masks.

DCIM\100MEDIA\DJI_0234.JPG

We stayed in Mbali Mbali Mahale, an idyllic lodge with luxurious bungalows, great food and very attentive staff. The next day we went to see the chimpanzees and I could still feel my legs after the gorilla visit. This was however incomparably less strenuous and we got chimpanzees passing couple of feet from us – not paying much attention to what we were doing, which was really just taking as many pictures as possible. In the afternoon, part of the group went for fishing and caught our dinner, but we stayed at the lodge, just relaxing.

Our last day started very early, with breakfast at 6 am and departure from the hotel at 7 am for 1.5 hour boat ride to the airstrip and 2 hours flight to Tabora. My fuel consumption was as planned and we arrived with comfortable margin. This time, I filled both tanks, but failed to follow the universal Africa fuel rule: when you see fuel, you take fuel – we didn’t fill the jerrycans. I put a little square of hard plastic made from plastic water bottle over the opening in an attempt to isolate the duct tape from the fuel and covered it with tape. We went thru usual hassles of immigration, customs, paying the fees and filing the flight plans and launched for the 4 hours flight to Mombasa. I was the first and immediately after the takeoff we noticed fuel streaming from the left tank.

Applying duct tape with staff watching and the end result
Aircraft “inspection”

I returned back to the airport and we attempted to put more duct tape over the wing. When satisfied with the result, we wanted to launch again, but the whole airport staff and a fire truck was there – the airport manager said he couldn’t let me go because the airplane was not safe. What followed was a ten minutes discussion, we were explaining that a Cessna 206 has two fuel selector position, left and right and even if we lost all fuel from the left tank, we still had enough to fly to our alternate, Arusha. Finally, he made me write and sign a release and agreed to let us go.

We couldn’t see fuel streaming on the second takeoff, so I hoped the tape would hold and it seemed it did for a while. Fuel gauge on the left tank was moving towards zero too fast, but then it stopped moving at a quarter tank. I set myself a limit – I was flying on the left tank and if I could delay switching to the right tank until 300 nm from the destination (about 3 hours with headwind we had), I would continue to Mombasa, otherwise I would divert to Arusha. Things were going on nicely, but then at 330 miles, engine stopped. That’s always an unpleasant event, but particularly when you are over middle of Tanzania with nothing but low brush below – lions and leopards are much less cute when observed from a crashed airplane. I was obviously spring-loaded for that situation, immediately switched to the right tank, fuel pump, and the engine restarted few very long seconds later. I now had dilemma – continue to the destination and land with couple gallons of fuel or divert to Arusha. In any normal country, it would be a simple call, but in Tanzania we already exited the country, Arusha is a domestic-only airport and I recalled experience of my friend John who declared emergency over Medellin, Colombia and was stuck there for four days resolving paperwork. I thought about it for couple of minutes, redid fuel calculations and announced on our air-to-air frequency that we were diverting to Arusha. My calculations showed that if reduce power and lean brutally, I most likely would made it to Mombasa, but with less than half an hour reserve and “most likely” together with “less than half an hour reserves” didn’t sit well with me. I didn’t have fuel totalizer. fuel flow indication was an analog gauge and I wasn’t 100% sure how accurate it was. I recalled another experience in Bogota, Colombia when I broke my one hour fuel reserve landing with 45 minutes and how I promised myself I would never do it again. Well, here I was again, what’s the point of making yourself promises and setting up limits before departure if you are not prepared to respect them?

All the others continued to Mombasa, they couldn’t help us in Arusha and in fact would have made the situation worse by having four, instead of one aircraft in an irregular situation. Approaching Arusha, I called Kilimanjaro Approach and explained that I had a fuel leak, I was diverting to Arusha to make a technical stop. After being cleared to land, we taxied to fuel and took 42 liters (11 gallons) into the right tank. I most likely would have made it to Mombasa, but most likely was not good enough. I went to the tower and explained the situation there, hoping they would let me leave on my existing flight plan. After few phone calls it became clear that they had no clue what to do with me, so finally they found a solution allowing them to get rid of the problem altogether. “This is a domestic airport, you are flying to Kenya, you need to receive the clearance from Kilimanjaro Approach”. Whatever was getting me back in the air was fine by me, so we back-taxied and took off. We called Kili Approach, who thought we were coming for landing at Kilimanjaro International, but I explained we were on the fight plan to Mombasa and they just requested we stayed at or below 5,500 when in the control zone.

When we left the CTR and I switched the frequency, we knew we were going to sleep in Mombasa that night. Soon we entered Kenya airspace and proceeded to the destination. The 30 minutes turnaround in Arusha will most likely remain a record hard to beat for years to come.

It was hard to believe this trip was now over. We flew 3,625 nautical miles in 34.4 hours Hobbs, landed at 19 airports in 6 countries and brought back 120 GBytes of pictures and videos. You can see the map on the right in more details on Google Maps.

Tanzania East to West

This is the second part of our East Africa trip, after flying from South Africa through Mozambique, we now traversed Tanzania from Zanzibar to Lake Victoria. We were a group of friends flying in Cessna 182 and 206 aircrafts.

Dar es Salaam TMA (terminal control area) extends 100 nm around the city, from 1,500 AGL to FL245. TMA is controlled airspace and you should theoretically be in contact with ATC to enter it. Well, good luck raising anybody more than 20 nm from Dar. The CTR (control zone) extends 15 nm from the airport and it is generally frowned, even in Africa, to fly there without clearance. I finally managed to talk to a controller, who tried to send me 20 miles east of the airport, which would 10 miles offshore. After a bit of negotiation, we got that down to 10 nm, which I arbitrarily reduced to 8, on account of unreliable navigation instruments. We still had to fly over water, the island of Zanzibar is 18 nm from the shore, but at least we didn’t spend more time than the minimum necessary. That big red circle on the left side, that’s a prohibited area HTP6(E). We didn’t need to fly through it, but I wouldn’t think twice about it if I had to.

Zanzibar is an interesting place. It used to be an independent country, before it merged with Tanganyika to form Tanzania. There are still very strong feelings on the island against that union, as explained to us by a guide who took us on the walking tour of the Stone Town. It is indeed a mélange, Arab, Black, European, Indian all mix together. The city is falling apart, but you see some nice renovated building and above all, you see a peaceful coexistence of these many different cultures and religions. We stayed at Zanzibar Serena hotel, a colonial building from the time gone, but well preserved. We went to Africa House for sunset cocktails and walked the town narrow street avoiding motorcycles and bicycles. One day was not enough to get a real feeling of the town.

As much as we were happy to arrive to Zanzibar after our magneto and starter problems in Mozambique, departure was a different story. It took over two hours and literally tons of money to pay for the required permits and file flight plan. Tanzania general aviation infrastructure is abysmal, you pay exorbitant fees in cash, because the credit card machines are usually broken, it takes hours to process, computers are down, employees barely move, in summary it is an aviation hell. We finally left to fly towards Moshi and Arusha to see Mount Kilimanjaro, but the visibility was about ten miles and we could hardly see anything. Half way through, we took a decision to fly direct to our destination, Ngorongoro Crater with an airstrip that is at 7,800 feet on the rim of the crater. I cajoled our 206 to climb to 8,000 and later to 9,000, which she did very reluctantly. The approach and landing were spectacular, with the crater caldera below us at 5,000 feet.

Ngorongoro Crater Takeoff
View from the hotel on the caldera and the crater rim

Ngorongoro Serena lodge is about 10 minutes from the airstrip. The hotel has amazing views on the crater, rooms are functional, each with tiny private balcony and the restaurant and bar remind a mountain resort. The next day we boarded safari cars for a game drive in the crater. It is hard to describe the combined effect of thousands of animals grazing around and crater rim looming above.

Ngorongoro caldera

We saw lions, leopards, hyenas, elephants, rhinos, zebras, buffaloes and antelopes. At one point, two hyenas attacked a wildbeest (gnu antelope), which was trying to escape. Hyenas are normally scavengers, but they also attack live animals, they have extremely powerful jaws, second only to crocodiles. They managed to bite the wildbeest on the side, but it looked like that hunt might take a long time, when suddenly we saw two lions coming over. The wildbeest run towards the cars, which at this point were converging from all directions, so that the tourists could witness the killing. It didn’t take lions more than a minute to finish the wildbeest and they started to eat it, with by now about two dozen cars around. While it was fascinating, in perhaps morbid sense to witness the killing in nature, I couldn’t shake the sense of disgust having all of us congregating around to see the spectacle. Don’t watch the video if you don’t want to see a killing.

Lions killing a wildbeest

The next day we visited a Masai village. Masai are usually nomads, but that tribe settled in the current location and allows tourists to visit and photograph their village, in exchange for a fee of course. The huts were extremely primitive, it was hard to imagine people living in such conditions. They had sandals made of used tires and colorful blankets to guard against cold. The village chief was a young 25 old guy, who spoke very good English. At one moment we said something in French and he replied in that language. After the visit, we drove again to the crater for more game watching.

Masai women

On Tuesday, we were planning to fly to Arusha, refuel, fly towards Mount Kilimanjaro and Lake Natron for sightseeing, but weather early in the morning was showing 2,000 overcast in Arusha, which soon turned into low level fog. Plan B was to fly directly to our next destination, Seronera airstrip about 60 miles away. We had enough fuel to reach it and to continue to our next fuel stop, Mwanza, but not enough for any sightseeing.

We thought that Seronera would be like Lumbo, no other airplanes around, but it turned out to be a very busy airstrip, with Coastal Air Cessna Caravans bringing in tourists to visit Serengeti. This was when we realized none of us had an idea what frequency to use to self-announce. On long final, a Caravan cut in front of me from left base and I had to do a 360 to let him land. After landing the pilot came to me and said he saw me on TCAS and he tried to talk to me. It turned out that uncontrolled fields in Tanzania use 118.2, which was something Marcus told us about in a pre-departure briefing, but we forgot.

Mbali Mbali Lodge In Serengeti

We were picked up by cars from Mbali Mbali Soroi lodge, our hotel for the following three nights. We had a picnic lunch and went for a game drive on the way to the lodge. The lodge is located on a hill, with amazing views on the valley below. The staff told us that during the time when Migration passes there, which usually happens late June, early July, you could literally sit on the chair and see thousands and thousands of animals passing by. We were a month late, unfortunately. If you are planning to visit Serengeti, make sure to choose a lodge which is close to where Migration is when you arrive. In our case, the animals were already in Kenya and we missed it. In spite of that setback, we did go for game drives both days and saw giraffes, elephants, zebras, buffaloes, antelopes, lions, leopards and hyenas. Many times, the animals were couple of feet from the car.

Leopards from really close

Departing Seronera for Mwanza, we showed at the airstrip with all our luggage and were told we had to go through security check. This is a problem everywhere in Africa, and if fact the same was the case in Central and South America. They just don’t understand there is something like private airplane and apply the same security checks as for commercial flights. I simply refused to follow their admonitions and loaded two of our four suitcases into the airplane bypassing the security checks. A guard grabbed however the remaining two, opened them and started to check the content. He found a hair spray and triumphantly told Ania: “you can’t take it with you to the cabin”, to which she had a brilliant reply: “oh, don’t worry, this is in the checked in luggage”. The guy was so stumped, that he only managed to say: “ah, ok then” and off we went. This exchange wins the first price for absurdity.

After an hour flight to Mwanza, which is located at the shore of Lake Victoria, where we refueled and went through immigration and customs, we departed for our next destination, Kisoro in Uganda.

480 nm through Tanzania and 5 hours on Hobbs

Mozambique Coast

This is the first part of our East Africa trip, travelling from Pretoria, South Africa to Zanzibar, Tanzania along the Mozambique Indian Ocean Coast to Tanzania. We were a group of friends flying in four Cessna 182 and 206 airplanes.

We arrived to Opikapi Guest House in Pretoria after a 9-hour flight from Istanbul. There isn’t much to see in Pretoria, but we still did a half day guided tour, visiting the center, Voortrekker monument, Nelson Mandela statute and Kruger house museum. The following day it was time to meet our airplanes. Marcus from Bushpilot Adventures proposed that I take a Cessna 206, instead of 182 originally planned and I agreed, but I forgot that a 206 has no door on the co-pilot side and the window doesn’t open. There is a door on the pilot side on the left and a big one on the right side in the back for passengers. Ania didn’t like that arrangement at all, so I ended flying the whole trip from the right seat.

A test flight didn’t start well. Unlike smaller 172 or 182, it is pretty much impossible to reach the fuel cap without climbing on the wing, so Marcus checked the fuel. He is the owner of Bushpilot Adventures from whom we rented the airplanes. Right after the takeoff we had a plume of avgas streaming from the left wing and we returned immediately back for landing. Airport truck found the missing cap on the runway and the second pattern was uneventful, except this being my very first landing in a 206, I managed to pancake it on the runway like a pre-solo student, which was made worse by Chris, who went with us for a ride watching it all from the back seat. A timeless lesson out of that: when you have two pilots, you have to be twice as vigilant, I was a PIC and I should have checked that the fuel cap was secure.

Wonderboom to Maputo

Friday morning was the day of departure, we loaded all our bags into the airplane – a 206 is well known for its load carrying capabilities and launched from Wonderboom to Kruger. It was a good thing that we were departing and returning to FAWB, because I was only understanding half what the controllers were saying, between unfamiliar phraseology and strong South African accent, I would have made a fool of myself if we were to fly there more. It was a short, less than two hours flight to Kruger and I decided to climb to 7,500 to see how the airplane flies – I had an impression it took forever to get there, which will make it interesting when taking off from Ngorongoro at that altitude. Strong crosswinds in Kruger made a landing in a still unfamiliar airplane somewhat interesting, but we survived. The following leg to Maputo was even shorter, landing was already decent and we were in Mozambique.

As a general rule, more miserable a country is, higher the hurdles at the border and Mozambique is not an exception. We didn’t have a visa and had to wait two hours in line to get one on arrival. While fuming about the delay, I recalled that I did have to wait two hours at immigration arriving to San Francisco once, so I guess this can happen anywhere. We were hoping to see the city, but the delay and frustration made us stay in the hotel for an early dinner – after mandatory gin and tonic in the bar of course. The “Grand Dame” of Africa, as the Polana Serena Hotel is widely known, is a must-see historical landmark in Maputo. The elegance and splendor of its façade are the living memory of bygone colonial times.

Polana Serena Hotel

On Saturday morning, we returned to the airport to find out that the fees we paid the previous day went directly to the pocket of the guy who was doing our paperwork and that we had to pay them again. It was the only real cheat on that trip, but it only made the bad taste for Maputo worse. We launched for a 3.5 hours flight to Vilankulo along the coast. When departing, Maputo tower advised all of us individually and solemnly to “avoid overflying the military base”, to which all four pilots replied without hesitation “roger, we will stay clear”. When I asked after we arrived, none of us had a slightest idea where the “military base” was.

The flight was beautiful, the coast amazing, we stayed at 1,500 all the way while the others went a bit higher in search for favorable winds. We landed in Vilankulo, took fuel, paid fees and launched for Bazaruto Island. Well, some of us actually did. Two airplanes were already taxing to the runway when I tried to start the engine and heard only a faint click when I turned the key. That was really an unpleasant surprise. Chris stayed with us while I called Marcus at Bushpilot Adventures for help.

While he was conferring with mechanics, we moved one of our suitcases to Chris 182, with the idea that they will fly to Indigo Bay, Bazaruto, about 10 minutes flight and come back to pick us up after unloading the airplane there. In the meantime, Marcus called back and asked that I remove the cowl and locate the starter. I did that and he said to tap lightly on the solenoid and harder on the starter, three times with a wrench. Seriously? You know when the IT support asks you “sir, please make sure your computer is plugged in” as the first step in debugging, I felt the same, but I obliged and tapped three times each. Back to the cabin, master on, turn the key and …. the prop turns. Unbelievable, this is African black magic, even more impressive because done remotely. I put the cowl back, we hop into the airplane, I ask Ania to cross her fingers, master on, fuel pump on to prime and off, turn the key and the engine starts. We fly to Bazaruto, land by huge sand dunes advancing onto the island from the ocean side and race to the bar for a well-deserved gin and tonic.

Anantara is a luxury resort located on Bazaruto Island, about 10 nm offshore, with a staff attentive to any guest requests and is all inclusive – including the gin and tonic. Staff welcomed us at the airport dancing and singing local songs. We spent the next day relaxing at the resort and recovering from the previous day adventures. We also went on a tour of the island, searching for and finding flamingos, but they were too far for taking good pictures.

Takeoff from Indigo Bay, Bazaruto Island

All too quickly it was time to depart, our original plan was to refuel in Quelimane, about half way to our next stop, but Quelimane had no fuel, we had to refuel in Beira, which still allowed us to fly to Lumbo, the airport of our next stop at Isla de Mozambique and continue to Pemba. It was only an hour to Beira, engine started fine at Indigo Bay, so we thought we were in good shape. They did have fuel in Beira, but when I turned the key, I was met with the same clicking sound as before. Voltage went to zero, we had a short somewhere in the starter. This time, no amount of tapping on various components made a difference. Calling back Marcus, conference with mechanics, they suggested turning the prop counter-clockwise, but still no luck. We were getting ready to hand-prop the airplane, but decided to check it one last time and the prop turned. We now had a strong suspicion this was heat related – about an hour after we removed the cowl and the starter cooled off, the short disappeared. Not exactly comforting, but better than the alternative. Cowl back on, engine starts and we launched for Lumbo.

Lumbo is an uncontrolled field and I got an impression that nobody landed there yet in this century. We had a local school running over to see four little airplanes with eight crazy white people and few dozen suitcases pack into Coral Lodge van. In the meantime, we negotiated with a local policeman a fee to guard the airplanes, it started at $100/airplane for two nights, but we couldn’t reach an agreement. In the end, we paid half of it, after the intervention of the hotel manager. We drove through a narrow bridge from mainland to the Isla de Mozambique, but we couldn’t see where the hotel could possibly be. Turned out we had to jump (literally, from the beach) onto a boat and now it started to rain and it was dark. We arrived soaked and cold to the hotel for another mandatory gin and tonic.

Low tide Coral Lodge

Next day we are greeted by scattered clouds, but the sun soon punched through. It was low tide and we walked along the beach and on sandbars, I took the opportunity to test fly my drone, annoying our neighbors. I generally don’t like lobsters, but this was the only choice for dinner and it was divine. Coral Lodge is a wonderful hotel, very remote, but definitely worth a visit. We took a boat back to the island and went for a short tour, there was a local museum with interesting artifacts and no tourists. Ilha de Mocambique used to be the capital of the country a while back, but now is very remote and very few people manage to get there. These days it is a treat to see an interesting and empty museum. The only way in an out of the island, other than a boat is by a single lane bridge. This makes it for interesting situations when two cars drive from opposite directions.

Single lane brige; somebody has to back up

It was Tuesday evening, time to leave Wednesday in the morning and we learned there was no fuel in Pemba. Nacala never had it, our only option was Nampula, about 80 miles inland, not exactly in our way, but there was no other choice. We still didn’t have permits to fly into Tanzania, but Marcus is told that all was arranged, they were only waiting for a Very Important Person to sign them off. The VIP was supposed be in the office in the morning to sign it. The fuel in Nampula was supposed to show up in the evening and be ready for us in the morning. Together with our ongoing starter problems, we seemed to be in great shape for pressing into Tanzania. In the morning we learned that fuel did show up and the VIP also, so we left the hotel and drove to the Lumbo airport. Our airplane started fine, but Chris reported a backfire during the takeoff roll. He aborted and repeated the runup, which was fine, so we all flew to Nampula. Turns out the fuel was there, but while the VIP did sign off our permits into Tanzania, their “IT system is down” and they couldn’t generate them.

Remember what I said about poor countries and their bureaucracy? Tanzania is richer than Mozambique, but they are even more backward for supporting general aviation. The said permits have exactly zero utility, Marcus started to work on them weeks earlier and these morons were stringing him until the last day, just to find out they weren’t even able to run their computers. In the meantime, we went through the usual circus of paperwork in Nampula, with landing fees, security fees, filing flight plans, all the time hoping that permits would come through. We couldn’t wait too long, because we could only fly during the day and it was 4.5 hours flight to Zanzibar – we needed to arrive before dark. Finally, we decided to launch without permits. We had about an hour flight to Pemba, if the permits come through, Marcus would send them to our satellite text messengers, if not we would divert to Pemba. Talk about “Just in Time” concept.

Chris has a bad magneto

With all this commotion, I didn’t even think about my starter. It didn’t work when I tried right after refueling, but I hoped that it would work when the engine cooled off and indeed it did. That’s when Chris radioed out that he had a magneto failure and shut down the engine. We checked it again and yes, no RPM drop on the right magneto and engine dies on the left. This was now looking pretty bleak. Bad starter, bad magneto, no flight permits and in Nampula, Mozambique. We looked around and there was a hangar of Ambassador Aviation – it is a charter and humanitarian air charter company and they have maintenance. Dave, a pilot and a mechanic graciously put the 182 in a hangar, disassembled the magneto and confirmed it was dead. While they fly a fleet of Caravans and 206s, they use Bendix, not Slick mags and he couldn’t help. We called Marcus in Pretoria, who in the meantime already found a starter to tell him that he needed to also find a magneto. It was now clear that we were stuck in Nampula, the question was only for how long. For us to depart the next day, the following had to happen:

  1. Marcus needed to find a magneto and they are not manufactured anymore.
  2. He had to find a flight bringing him from Pretoria to Nampula latest by 9 am.
  3. Dave had to be able to replace and time the mag and replace the starter by noon.
  4. We had to redo the paperwork for international departure from Nampula.
  5. Geniuses in Dar-el-Salaam needed to issue the all-important permits.

It all looked like a piece of cake. We found a hotel in Nampula and the gloom factor deepened when we found out there was no bar and no alcohol. We were in Muslim country. Surprisingly, the hotel had an Indian chef who prepared great food and we had curry with mineral water and Coke Zero.

Dave at work on Chris magneto

We woke up Thursday morning and drove back to the airport – in fact Dave’s friend offered us a ride in both directions in his pickup truck. He refused any payment – today I help you, tomorrow you will help somebody else. In the meantime, we learned that Marcus was on a flight landing in Nampula at 8:10 am, with magnetos and starter. He flew to Maputo the day before late evening after “begging” airline officials to let him check in the airplane parts. The said begging included a charitable donation to official causes. Permits arrived and if only we could replace the parts in time, we might be on our way after all. This indeed what happened, Marcus replaced the starter and the solenoid, while Dave worked on the magneto and we were able to launch at noon for our 4.5 hours flight to Zanzibar. We landed at 5:30 local time, exhausted but happy to be out of Mozambique and with working airplanes.

1,800 nm in 16.,8 hours on Hobbs over 4 days of flying.

6th Mexico trip

Flying there

I’ve been organizing trips to Mexico for a while now, and this was our 6th. We had 11 airplanes and 24 participants flying to Oaxaca, San Cristobal de las Casas and Palenque, you should check out the itinerary.

It didn’t start well. We were planning to leave on Friday afternoon, but when I checked on the airplane on Thursday, battery #1 was dead. Given that’s the one that powers the starter, it didn’t seem wise to fly. Searches of nearby shops came empty, so I looked online. and found an outfit in Texas, that was shipping overnight for $280. A bargain. Battery came in at 2 pm on Friday. I run to the hangar, installed it, checked voltage and all look good. As I was closing the hangar, I realized I didn’t have my cap. Open the door and look everywhere, I couldn’t find it. There was only one place it could have been. I opened the cowl and sure enough, my cap was on the intercooler.

This is another example how important it is to walk around the airplane before starting the engine and examine engine compartment for foreign objects before closing the cowl. Particularly if in hurry or stressed.

We left before 4 pm for Phoenix.  I was watching weather all the week and it didn’t look good. However, skew-T diagrams along the route were showing that tops where below 17,000 with freezing levels around 3,000. It was unstable environment with some convection activities building up. I decided we should be able to climb on top with TKS on and indeed, the wings got trace ice before we climbed on top.

Next day, we flew to McAllen, TX, to meet about half of the group. Mighty tailwinds made it possible to make that flight without a stop, but we wanted to stretch our legs, perhaps also grab a bite and decided to land in Fort Stockton. Coming in on short final I saw barriers on the runway, at about one third.  I added power to go over, but the rest of the runway looked fine, so we landed. It turns out there was indeed a NOTAM for runway resurfacing, luckily only the first third of it. Lesson learned: RYFN (Read Your Freaking Notams). Airport was deserted, so we took gas and a granola bar and left.

There isn’t much to say about McAllen, other than it is a convenient launch point for Mexico and allowed us a direct flight to Oaxaca, our first destination. On the way, we could admire Citlaltépetl volcano, the highest peak in Mexico.

Oaxaca

To say that Oaxaca is a slow AOE (Airport of Entry) would be polite. First, they directed us to custom and immigration, which was reasonable, but then we got to the operation office where they told that we should have first closed our flight plan so that immigration and customs can apply required stamps. Than they proceeded to laboriously fill in seven Multi-Entry Authorizations, each of 8 pages. It took about 2.5 hours and we left disgusted without authorizations, which they promised to have ready for the next day.

The city itself is however wonderful. First, the food, this is a culinary capital of Mexico and if you ever visit, make sure to stop for mole at El Catedral and for tacos de lechón at Pitiona. Then, the city itself with its 16th century Church of Santo Domingo, the central Zócalo square, Palacio de Gobierno, with coloful murals depicting regional history. We wondered to Mercado 20 de Noviembre and couldn’t resist to stop at Chocolate Mayordomo, a museum and a tasting room with classes where you can learn to make your own chocolate drinks.

Monte Albán was founded in 500 BC on the top of a mountain dominating Oaxaca and functioned as the capital of Zapotecas from the beginning of our era until 800 AD. At its time of greatest development, Monte Albán had about 35,000 inhabitants, who lived mostly on the terraced slopes of the mountain devoted to agriculture.

Tuxtla and San Cristobal de las Casas

It was a short one hour flight from Oaxaca to Tuxtla Gutierrez, where we boarded a bus for a half an hour drive to Chiapa de Corzo, lunch and a boat ride in the spectacular Cañon del Sumidero. The canyon’s creation began around the same time as the Grand Canyon, by a crack in the area’s crust and subsequent erosion by the Grijalva River, which still runs through it. Sumidero Canyon has vertical walls which reach as high as 1,000 metres (3,300 ft), with the river turning up to 90 degrees during the 13-kilometre (8.1 mi) length of the narrow passage.

San Cristobal de las Casas was the capital of the state Chiapas until 1892, and is still considered the state cultural capital. The city’s center maintains its Spanish colonial layout and much of its architecture, with red tile roofs, cobblestone streets and wrought iron balconies often with flowers. We checked into Hotel Casavieja, a very simple but adequate place very close to the center and went out for dinner.

The most interesting and intriguing place to visit is actually 6 miles outside of the city, the Tzotil town of San Juan Chamula and its Iglesia de San Juan Bautista. The church is filled with colorful candles, and smoke from burning copal resin incense, commonly used throughout southern Mexico. Along the walls of the church are Catholic saints resting on tables posted in the church, but they represent Mayan gods. Candles are lit and the people sit on the floor and pray below the saints. The local form of Catholicism is a blend of pre-conquest Maya customs, Spanish Catholic traditions, and subsequent innovations.

It is forbidden to take pictures inside the church, so you will have to come and see yourself.

Palenque

It was even a shorter flight from Tuxtla to Palenque, but it turned out that the destination was overcast and unlikely to clear up. We didn’t want to file IFR and suffer through 16,000 feet MEAs, so we launched VFR planning to request a pop clearance at the destination. The overcast layer was only few thousand feet and we cruised in VMC on top. Arriving over Palenque we dutifully request IFR clearance for the VOR/DME Rwy 10, but a relaxed controller replied simply: “roger, report turning inbound”. I think this was the first time I flew an IFR approach in actual conditions on 1200 squawk code, but come to think about it, what’s the point of having a discrete squawk code if there is no radar?

We checked into our hotel Piedra de Agua and the next launched for a visit of the Palenque archaeological site. The city was founded during the late pre-classic, which corresponds to the beginning of the Christian era. After several centuries, about 500 A.D., the city rose to be a powerful capital within a regional political unit. The total area of the archaeological site is about 1800 hectares and 1,400 buildings have been recorded, of which only about 10% have been explored. Older than the ensemble at Tikal, whose major monuments were constructed a hundred years later, the group of ceremonial buildings at Palenque is an outstanding example of a ceremonial and civic site corresponding to the middle of the Classic period in the Maya area.

It takes about half a day to visit a day to visit the site and in the afternoon we drove to see and take a dip in Agua Azul waterfalls. These waterfalls consists of many cataracts following one after another, taken from near the top of the sequence of cascades. The larger cataracts may be as high as 6 meters (20 feet) or so. During much of the distance the water descends in two streams, with small islands in the middle. The water has a high content of calcium carbonate and other minerals, and where it falls on rocks or fallen trees, it encases them in a thick shell-like coating of limestone and gives them unique color.

It was refreshing to take a swim in one of the natural pools. On the way back, we stopped to admire yet another waterfall, Cascada de Misol-Ha.

Return home

It is 2,000 miles from Palenque to San Carlos, our home base, so we decided to stop on Saturday night at Hacienda de los Santos, our preferred hotel in Mexico. The flight took us first to Queretaro for refueling and we then battled strong headwinds on the way to Alamos (MM45). All was however forgotten with the first sip of margarita!

Altogether, we flew about 4,500 nautical miles and visited three wonderful locations.

Supercharger to Colorado

I had a pleasure to ferry N1501C, a gorgeous Cirrus SR22 from Hayward, California to Rifle, Colorado. The airplane was flying to a new owner and I am sure that the seller had to regret seeing the airplane leaving. He clearly put much love into what started as a G1 Cirrus, but ended with a new engine, a FAT Supercharger, MT 4-blade composite prop, Avidyne R9 avionics, LoPresti LED lights, LoPresti wheel pants, Aerox built-in oxygen and new interior.


The original plan was to leave Wednesday morning and return the same day with United. I had a busy week and Wednesday was the only day free. Flying over mountains in the West in winter really requires turbines, if the weather doesn’t cooperate. I know some people fly in SR22T FIKI in IMC over Sierras and I did it also once in a normally aspirated clean wing SR22. It is sufficient to say that I won’t do it again.

Weather for Wednesday looked dicey, barely possible. Winter storms were coming over the destination, with low visibility in snow. I thought that I might find a window. On the left is a forecast from Monday 9 pm (for a Wednesday flight) and on the right, the forecast from 10 pm.

In case you wonder, these are screenshots from WeatherSpork, really cool, same say the best general aviation weather app. Perhaps apart the name.

On Tuesday afternoon that little green square at KRIL closed also and I got a text message from United advising me of winter storms in Colorado and recommending a no-fee rebooking for a different day. Simultaneously, my Thursday afternoon flight got cancelled and my morning flight became a student solo flight (different recommending instructor). Suddenly, my Thursday was free! I know a hand of providence (god, fate, or whatever is your fancy) when I see it, so I promptly changed my United tickets to Thursday, called the buyer to let him know about one day delay and proceeded to thoroughly enjoy a do-nothing Wednesday.

On Thursday morning weather forecast was for clear sky all the way to the destination and I left home early planning for an early departure. Arriving to the airport at 7 am I found N1501C where I left her, but with frost on the wing. What, frost, in California, Bay Area? After couple of minutes staring at that interesting phenomenon in disbelief, I recalled that I had a scrapper in my own hangar. Scrapper worked fine and in fact didn’t leave a trace on the wing, but it was hard work. By the time I was done, it was close to 8 am.

After uneventful departure and climb to 15,500 (that airplane was climbing in a hurry), I put on oxygen. I have on-demand system in my airplane with small cannulas, but this was standard, continuous flow system, so I could enjoy a lovely mustache.

Crossing over Sierra I was rewarded with magnificent views of the snow over the mountains.

and Mono Lake covered in thin mist of clouds.

I was hoping to make it non-stop to Rifle, 700 nm trip, with light tailwinds and started playing with Avidyne R9 to explore all that it can offer. Avidyne was the first company that Cirrus chose to offer “glass” cockpit for early SR22. Well, technically that is not true, the very first MFDs were from Arnav, but that is already prehistory. Our Cirrus, N823FW has Avidyne PFD and MFD, so called version 8. Version 9 (hence R9) was designed as revolutionary upgrade and indeed it was at the time.

With synthetic vision, well thought layout, MFD with traffic and weather, digital autopilot (DFC100) and a keyboard to enter waypoint and frequencies instead of twisting knobs as on than contemporary GNS430, it was very much ahead of time.

Unfortunately, development took very long time (Avidyne perennial weakness), politics and business got involved and Cirrus selected Garmin as the supplier for the next generation avionics, the Perspective.  Avidyne offered R9 as a (extremely expensive) upgrade and few owners did upgrade.

For little fun, notice that the keyboard on R9 is Qwerty. Garmin either decided to do different or had a brain fart and designed alphabetical keyboard. After all instructors finally got used to that contortion, they finally fixed that mistake with Qwerty keyboard in Perspective+.

All that reminiscence and knob turning took some time, so when I finally decided to check the weather at the destination, I was in for a little choc when looking at my iPad, which was connected to Stratus ADSB receiver.

Yes, these red blobs, that’s my destination. Clear everywhere, except where I needed it. Visibility 3/4 mile is snow, ceiling, well, with that visibility it hardly mattered. I was still an hour away, so I decided to continue, while evaluating plans B and C.

Plan B would be an instrument approach into Rifle. If that visibility improved, I could fly RNAV Y runway 26. I could see well in front of me, so I knew that the it would be relatively shallow layer of IMC with not much time in it.  And the visibility could very well improve, it came fast, it could go away fast, weather in the mountains changes rapidly. However, I would only have 15 gallons of fuel when arriving over Rifle and I still had to fly out before making a procedure turn back to catch the glide path. Notwithstanding the fact that I could very well have to go missed. Far, far too little fuel for these kind of games.

Time for plan C, which was to land in Grand Junction, refuel and call the buyer to ask how it looks in Rifle. Nothing like a pair of eyes, pilot eyes, to evaluate the situation. To keep my options open, I switched on TKS to see how well it worked, waited for couple of minutes and didn’t see a trace of glycol neither on the wings nor on the windshield. That instrument approach into Rifle suddenly became much less appealing.

Just as I was about to congratulate myself for my planning skills, the airplane pitched to the right and a message “SERVO LIMIT” popped up. I disconnected the autopilot and tried to trim the airplane, but she stubbornly decided to keep rolling to the right. Hand flying out of trim airplane for an instrument approach in the mountains with only superficial familiarity with avionics and no anti-ice? Plan B was promptly pushed out of the alphabet and plan D became to overnight in Grand Junction.

Fighting the trim didn’t leave much time to keep checking weather in Rifle, but when I was landing, the road leading to Rifle looked passable. You know, different kind of IFR “I follow the Roads”. After landing and taxing to the fuel pump, I opened the door and … ouch! It was -12 degrees C outside. I refueled as quickly as I could, jumped back into the airplane and checked the weather in Rifle again. This time, I was in for a good surprise. Visibility 10 miles, ceiling 4,000 and all these red and yellow gone. Little bit of green, but not much. What mountain gives, mountain takes, or something to that effect.

Departing VFR, short hop to Rifle, delivered the airplane to the new owner, who graciously drove me back to Grand Junction, for a United flight back home. I landed at SFO at 9 pm.

Africa, Again!

Our trip to South Africa in 2017 was magical, but Africa is addictive, once you’ve seen it, you can’t help to want to see it again. And again. So we return to Africa.

We have even more grandiose trip scheduled for July 2019 – it is long time to plan, but it is not your garden variety of cross-country flight. To wet the appetite, here are the highlights:

  • Departing Johannesburg, South Africa
  • Maputo, Mozambique and follow the coast northbound
  • Vilancoulos and Bazaruto Island
  • Isla de Mozambique
  • Zanzibar and its Stonetown
  • Fly around Mount Kilimanjaro
  • Game viewing at Ngorongo Crater
  • Great Migration in Serengeti from the ground and from the air
  • Bwindi Impenetrable Park in Uganda and mountain gorillas
  • Chimpanzees viewing at the shore of Lake Tanganyika
  • over to Mombasa, Kenya traversing Tanzania

It will take us three weeks and the schedule is built to allow for one day of flying, followed by one or two days at a given location. The majority of flights are less than 2 hours, with not more than 3 flights per day in Cessna 182. It will be a small group,  four or five airplanes flying together.

First part of the trip takes us through Mozambique and the unspoiled beaches of Indian Ocean, I plan to stay low at 500 feet to enjoy the scenery. After visiting the capital, Maputo, we are heading to Bazaruto Island. One of the greatest pleasures of traveling in a light airplane is when you can land on a dirt strip and walk to your hotel.

Our second stop is to visit Ilha de Moçambique half way up the coast, a small crescent shaped island where time stopped, tourists didn’t yet arrive and African, Portuguese, Swahili, French and Goan flavors mix  in a potent melange.

We will continue heading North along the Indian Ocean coast, cross into Tanzania and head towards the island of Zanzibar. When Tanganyika and Zanzibar joined each other in 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania, Zanzibar kept a semi-autonomous status, with Stone Town as its local government seat. Its architecture, mostly dating back to the 19th century, reflects the diverse influences underlying the Swahili culture, giving a unique mixture of Arab, Persian, Indian and European elements.

While we will not be able to overfly it, since it rises to almost 20,000 feet, we will fly by and around Mount Kilimanjaro after a 2-hour flight from Zanzibar and land in Moshi, the town at which the majority of trekkers start their Kilimanjaro ascent, and as such has a vibrant feel while still being typically laid-back African.

Departing Moshi, we will route past or over the volcano of Mt. Meru and continue towards Ngorongo Crater. This is our highest altitude airfield at 7,800 feet, with a view into the crater on final approach. Approximately 2.5 million years ago, the Ngorongo crater was a huge volcanic mountain, rivaling Kilimanjaro in size. This changed when the top of the mountain collapsed, creating the biggest volcanic caldera in the world.  The park is teaming with wildlife, with animals such as zebra, buffalo, hyenas, wildebeests and lions thriving in the area.

After couple of days at Ngorongo, we will fly north towards Kitumbeine  Ol Doinyo Lengai volcanoes, over the oddly-colored Lake Natron sporting colonies of flamingos before turning west towards Serengeti, taking our time in the air and go in search of the Great Wildebeest Migration – it’s a true privilege to be able to see the sheer size of this spectacle from the air and piloting one’s own aircraft provides the freedom to explore all corners of the Serengeti at will.

After leaving Serengeti plains we will head towards the mountains of Rwanda, first Kigali and than Ruhengeri to admire the Volcanoes National park from the air before entering Uganda and stopping for the night at Lake Mutanda. We will spend the next day at Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, an ancient mountain and lowland forest spanning 128 square miles and home to the largest population of mountain gorillas. There are fewer than 900 of them in existence and we will have a rare opportunity to observe the everyday interactions of these gentle, mysterious primates. To see them from few meters away, we will pay a price of couple of hours hiking in the forest.

Time to return to Rwanda and fly back into Tanzania for an overnight stop in Kigoma, relaxing with unparalleled views on the Lake Tanganyika, before following the lake shore next day for a flight to Mahale.

Very different from anything else Tanzania has to offer,  Mahale Mountains National Park is set in the far west of the country. Remote and beautiful, this off-the-beaten-track destination is quite possibly the best place in the world for chimpanzee safaris. We hope to come close to them during our next day hike in the forest.

Time to head back – after a refueling stop in Tabora, we will cross Kenya border and terminate the trip in Mombasa.

Three weeks, about forty hours of flight time, four thousand nautical miles,  we expect to bring back terabytes of pictures and videos and the most precious – memories.

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