South America

Adventures in South America

These are pictures from my first rotation of working in South America. The standard schedule is to spend 4 weeks working, and 2 weeks off in the US, so these are the stories and pictures of my first 4 weeks worth of flying. The route is from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Campinas, Brazil. Look in the lower left corner of the map for an idea of where the route is. Buenos Aires is just off of the bottom of the map. Click on a small picture if you would like to see a big one.

Buenos Aires, Argentina
Brief research seems to indicate that the population of the official town of Buenos Aires is around 3 million. Likewise, the metropolitan area is more like 12; either way, it is by far the largest group of lights that I have ever flown over at night. The hotel that we stay in is really in the heart of downtown, and has been compared to park avenue by some of my co-workers. As you can see from the pictures, the hotel room is really pretty nice, with a little kitchen and everything. Since I haven't lived anywhere for a while, I was captivated by the novelty of having enough of a kitchen to cook in. So, as soon as I could find a grocery store, I set out on a culinary adventure that ended in some vegetable beef soup.

So once I was over that little chef phase, I found that it makes much more sense to go out to eat. This is partly because the local peso is worth about a third of a dollar, so when it comes to buying goods that aren't imported, it is like being three times as rich. But by far, the most important factor in an in-depth eat-in/eat-out cost analysis is that when I go out I don't have to do the dishes. There are lots of tall buildings around the hotel, with a few parks stuck in the middle. You could have dropped me off in the hotel, and said "welcome to _____," substituting the blank for any other city of this size, and I would have believed you. I guess that is the way big cities tend to be. There are some things that I notice that are different about BA compared to other cities. One example is that I don't really care as much for the parks. The flowers are lovely, since these pictures are from the local spring, and there are interesting trees and benches. But for some reason, all of the people who live in those tall buildings need to have dogs, and those dogs need to do what dogs do best... add to that the convenient location of the neighborhood park, and you have a recipe for doggy-poo extravaganza. For all of the years that I lived in the US, I thought it was strange that one could deface his own homeland by littering, dumping hazardous stuff down the drain, etc; contrary to what I used to think, this seems to be a completely international phenomenon. But, since you can't smell a picture, they did turn out fairly well.

Fortunately, there are several interesting places to walk from the hotel. One fun low-cost afternoon adventure is to walk over to the cemetery. There is a bit of an open-air market atmosphere most days out of the week, and there are several indoor-outdoor restaurants. Here are a few pictures from the cemetery, which reminded me of those in New Orleans. Certainly Catholicism influences the decor in both places, and geographically speaking, Buenos Aires probably has ample reason to avoid underground burials. Eva Peron, the one that the Evita movie was about (so I hear), has a grave site in this cemetery. I didn't find it, but I never really set out on a mission to do so. Instead I just walked down the hundreds of little streets. Instead of shops and restaurants on either side of the streets, there were tombs. It is a little bit odd to be able to look into the glass-door tombs and see a casket, and to realize what that really means. Where I grew up, one doesn't see caskets much after the funeral. Even more intriguing were the reflections in the glass doors. Much like well-designed monuments usually do, the tombs seemed to take on a metaphorical reflecting property. When looking through the glass, in addition to seeing the small shrines, I saw my own reflection, reminding me that even my own existence is a part of the life that used to live in the physical manefestation that sat decomposing before me. It also reminded me that I probably should have at least combed my hair. Or taken a shower or something. That's the bad thing about working nights, and not having anybody around... your schedule gets mixed up, you start to stretch things, and next thing you know, it's been a week without a shower. Well, maybe not a week. But I'm getting off the subject. The cemetery is certainly worth more than the afternoon that I spent, and I look forward to going back. Interestingly, there seems to be an order of monks standing guard over the cemetery, owning the responsibility of protecting the property from transient vermin. You can see one of these sentries standing guard in the last picture of this set. I asked him for an interview, but he declined to comment on camera.

On to Brazil

And now through the miracle of television, we get to skip ahead a bit. In the interest of disclosure, I should point out that the pictures on this page haven't really been presented in chronological order anyway. Rather, I've grouped the similar ones together, and pretended like they were all part of one long day. This is probably better for the reader, and the likelihood that the reader will make it to the end without giving up. Imagine that after the trip to the cemetery, you go back to the hotel, and sleep until 11:00pm. Now it's time to get up, to leave the hotel at 11:30, and head for the airport. It is about a 30 minute cab ride, followed by a slow but necessary process of getting ready to fly. The airplane turns around fairly quickly by our standards, since we meet the incoming crew, and take the plane right back to Brazil. The trip is too far for one crew to fly round trip, so we take turns. Go up on one day, rest, then come back. You know how pilots are about those naps... or at least how the government says we have to be. We fly directly over Uruguay, and make a fuel stop in Puerto Allegre Brazil, which is pretty close to half way. I don't have any pictures of Uruguay, since we seem to only be flying over while it is dark. If you have ever flown over open water, you've seen what it looks like there at night. It is incredibly sparse, with only an occasional town. As you can see from the pictures below, sometimes we are a little late and get to see the beginning of daylight in Puerto Allegre. It seems like a nice place, but if everything goes well, we are only there for a few minutes. The second leg goes over some fairly rugged terrain, which makes for interesting cloud formations in the morning. When the ground radiates the warmth of the day, the air near the surface gets a little cooler. This cooler, more dense air settles into the low areas, and if it cools enough to reach the dewpoint, the valley fills up with clouds. It almost looks like somebody poured a bunch of fluffy stuff in, since the hills hold the clouds back as though they were liquid. Also note the rare action shot of the king Dan reigning from his throne, casting his will and good fortunes on to the minions. People who study the nonverbal communications of the species tell me that an analysis of this posture and motion says "hey, what are you doing with that camera! Aren't you supposed to be pouring me another cup of agua sin-gas?" Just kidding of course... "Dan the boss man" is certainly one of the easiest people to fly with.

So here we are, in sunny Campinas. Campinas is a town in the vicinity of Sao Paulo, which is one of the largest cities in the world- only 38 million, plus or minus a few hundred thousand. 38 million... that's a bunch. That's like 38 towns of 1 million people, all living in the same place! Luckilly, Campinas is only about 1million, really just being a small suburb. Did I mention that the entire population of the continent of Australia is 19 million? Which some scientists speculate may be close to half of 38 million? Yikes, that's a lot of people for just one town. But anyway, I went through the usual routine of snapping pictures on the go while riding in the cab to the hotel. Campinas is a much more cozy place than our part of Buenos Aires, since the buildings aren't as tall, and the roads aren't as straight. With everything that curvy roads bring to ambiance, they also make for a high "get yourself lost" factor. But anyway, here are some pictures. Notice that some of the neighborhoods are really kind of low-income by any standard, with dirt streets, etc.

So finally, after staying up all night to fly to Brazil, it's time to sleep. The hotel does put on quite a nice continental breakfast, with cooked-to-order omelettes, fresh papayas, and numerous other wholesome goodies. I haven't yet encountered a situation where I was too tired to eat papayas, so I usually stay up for a little while longer. This hotel also has some interesting quirks; for instance, it seems to be really "high tech," with elevators that talk to you, hallway lights that turn on when they sense your presence, and even an exterior LED indicator for "do not disturb." Personally, I have mixed feelings about these innovations. Since I don't understand portuguese, I'm not exactly sure what the elevator is telling me. I would like to think that it is polite and respectful, but I'm not really sure. Also, sometimes the hallway lights are a bit slow to realize that I'm there, and thus slow to turn on. The LED do not disturb sign is kind of fun, since there is a switch inside the room. It almost makes up for not getting to fly a plane with a no smoking/fasten seat belt switch. I can make simulated PA announcements from inside the room, and flip the little switch for the passengers in the hallway. "Ladies and gentlemen, we've turned on the 'please make up this room sign.' No wait, now we've turned it off." After a few hours of this, it's no wonder the maid gave me that nasty look. But as you can see from the pictures, it is a nice trendy kind of place, and the staff is always willing to provide friendly help in english.

In the pictures below you can see a typical view of the sidewalk. Rather than concrete, they use small pieces of stone to make mosaic style sidewalks, with various patterns. Sometimes a business will have their logo installed in the patterns, and sometimes it is just abstract wiggles or patterns. One day we took a walk to the park, so I took some pictures along the way and once we got there. The giant rodents are called capybaras, and are about the size of a medium dog. These were semi-tame and displayed in captivity. Also note the bird army, standing at attention awaiting orders from the crane-looking drill sergeant. Or, I guess he would be a bill-sergeant.

I should warn you that here starts the airplane stuff. The airport at Campinas is a very simple layout, with one huge runway and a handful of parking spaces. It seems like many other airports in similar economic situations of the world; there aren't very many planes, but the ones that are there are very big and fly in from a very long way. It isn't every day that you get to see a civilian 707 in service, unless you are in Brazil. Then, it really is pretty much every day. Likewise with a VW bus featuring an up-to-date FedEx logo.

One day on our time off Marshall, who works in Campinas, was nice enough to take us out on a grand adventure. The first stop was a parachute drop zone, where Kjell was going to jump. The weather didn't cooperate enough for a jump, but it was neat to see so many enthusiasts and english speakers.

And the best part of the adventure was a trip to the model airplane field. I was amazed to see such a turnout on a rainy day. One nice gentleman spoke good english, and also happened to be flying electric planes much like the ones I've been playing with lately (see the model aviation link to the left). His craftsmanship was surperb, with custom machined parts. The helicopters are fairly antiquainted by US Standards, but they were expertly tuned. I had never seen such good tracking on wooden blades, and after seeing one flight, it was clear that the owner had really done a great job of getting everything dialed in. At home it isn't uncommon to see a much more expensive helicopter in the hands of a much less qualified builder or pilot. The tucano-looking plane is made entirely of depron sheets, and is a work of art. With the brushless outrunner motor it has about 3 times as much thrust as weight. Yikes! Thats like the thrust of three... nevermind.