We
love to fly, and are fascinated with geography. This is the
perfect marriage of interests for travelers. Our last trip to South America was at night. This time we are flying all the way in daytime and essentially within the same time zone .
Aerial Fascinations
We
love to fly, and are fascinated with geography. This is the
perfect marriage of interests for travelers.
Our last trip to South America was at night. This time we are flying all the way
in daytime and essentially within the same time zone .
We are using Copa Airlines. We had not flown with them before but learned that they are a division of Continental Airlines that began by serving Central and more recently South America. Their base is centrally located in Panama City.
Copa
has the youngest fleet of aircraft in the world. The new 737-800s feature "blended
winglets", an all-new advanced wing design. Winglets allow the aircraft to take off more easily from
high-altitude airports and in higher temperatures, making it more fuel-efficient. In addition, the winglets enable the airline to transport
more passengers and cargo on long-distance routes.
It was a short 3 hour flight from Miami to
Panama City. We follow the
canal
to the Pacific side and recall the fascinating fact that due to the intestine
like shape of Central America, the Pacific entrance to the canal is actually
EAST of the Atlantic opening. There were many large container ships awaiting
entrance to the canal from the Pacific side.
After less than 2 hours in the steamy capitol we change to another Copa plane to continue our trek southward. The next fascination to explore is how the West coast of South America is further East than the East coast of North America (check it out).
My 7th grade teacher, Vi
McCormick would hold us spellbound in her daily
pre-recess reading of Martin and
Osa Johnson's "Travels in Africa". When the angry elephant was about
to charge the convoy, she would invariably stop in the middle of the adventure
to say "time for recess" ! We would be torn between going
outside or running to the book to find out what happened. Among the memories from
that great book was the lasting mental image of a mountain on the equator that
was snowcapped. I was certainly fortunate in having such creative and
stimulating teachers.
To this day, I dream of going to Africa to see the Serengeti
Plain and especially Mt. Kilimanjaro with it snow. So, when shortly after
crossing the equator we entered the northern range of the Andes and, there it
was - an equatorial mountain covered with snow, it brought back memories.
Two years ago we stood fascinated on the beach at Puako on the big island of
Hawaii in 80 degree heat looking up to the 14,000 ft summit of Mona Kea where
the last night's storm had lowered the snow line to the 5,000 level - again we
were in awe of nature's extremes.
The Amazon too, has it's mystery. To see the wonderful and meandering tributaries of the huge water system from the air was a thrill ! Remembering its jungles, its tribes, its pink fresh water dolphins and stories of travelers make this a true adventure in the air - albeit vicarious.
The last geographic gem that
I want to
share with you about our Americas, concerns Maine and Brazil:
The two highest points on the entire Atlantic coast of our western
hemisphere are Cadillac Mountain in Maine and Sugarloaf Mountain in Rio De
Janeiro - with ten's of thousands of miles of coast in between there are none
higher.