"From San Juan I had hoped perhaps to be able to fly through in one day to Paramaribo in Dutch Guiana. but that did not work out and instead we spent the night at Caripito in Venezuela. While the air courses of the Caribbean and along the coasts of South America are well traveled by the ships of Pan American Airways, which have established a notably successful record with their southern service, it must be remembered that P.A.A. flies seaplanes so that all the way they have a watery landing strip beneath them where they may alight. For a land plane, however, especially a rather large one requiring considerable space on alighting, this territory is more difficult. -- I rolled out of bed at a quarter of four in the morning, hoping to make a dawn take-off from San Juan, but actually the Electra did not lift her wheels from the runway until nearly seven o'clock, with the sun well above the horizon. Incidentally, construction work at the field shortened the available take-off distance, making a heavy fuel load a bit difficult, and adding a further factor in the final decision not to try to push through the thousand miles to Paramaribo. (She battled head winds of at least 30 miles per hour all the way from San Juan to Caripito) "Push through." I find myself writing those words almost resentfully. We're always pushing through, hurrying on our long way, trying to get to some other place instead of enjoying the place we'd already got to. A situation, alas, about which there was no use complaining. I'd made my schedule and had to abide by it. After all, this was not a voyage of sight-seeing. Only there were so many sights I wanted to see."
In But This Is Different, Amelia will have forty years to see the sights on the island of Nani while she waits to keep a promise. How long would you wait? Visit http://butthisisdifferent.com for more on Nani and a woman they called Mere.
In the photograph we see Amelia and the Electra at Caripito, Venezuela.
No comments:
Post a Comment