Another oops...

Last Friday Iberia Airlines, the national airline of Spain, had an oops in Quito with one of their Airbus 340's. It is a common story. They landed way to long and way too fast, and thus went off the end of the runway where the airplane still sits until it is cut apart. Thankfully nobody was hurt. The weather conditions at the time of the accident were very marginal as well, which I am sure had something to do with the pilot's poor decision making.

Before and after

Some of you may remember this post. Well, unfortunately this pilot and plane had another mishap on Tuesday. Praise the Lord all were okay, although 2 of the 4 passengers were admitted to the hospital. They later were discharged pretty banged up, but otherwise okay. The plane crashed due to being overweight and encountering "a bad wind" on takeoff.

More snakes

Yesterday, while in the community of Makuma I had a while to wait while my doctor passenger attended to some local patients before heading to Nunkui with me. One of the missionaries that lives there in Makuma is very passionate about all things crawly, especially snakes. He was just brought the one you see below the day before by some nearby villagers. The snake was beautifully green and yellow. We took him into the nearby grass to get some pictures, where he got a little agitated (that was the plan) and puffed up and got into his defensive strike position. Unfortunately, I had my camera on black and white setting, which is undoable, thus making the brilliantly colored snake two tone. Oops!

Fluid Dynamics

Di-hydrogen oxide (water) is a weird thing. With all the water in Ecuador, there are obviously a lot of rivers and streams. Due to their rapid elevation loss over a short period of time, most of the rivers take on a very muddy appearance until they are much farther downstream, almost to the Peruvian border some 100-120 miles away. I have noticed while flying over the plethora of waterways in the jungle the interesting way some of the streams and rivers merge. While I cannot explain all the details about their merging, two bodies of water carrying different sediments etc, alters their density, thus their ability to mix easily. Therefore in the picture below two rivers basically comprised of the same elements are "repelling" each other until much farther downstream where they mix and become the same color.

Bagre anyone?

In keeping with my unexpected animal theme as of late, here is another creature found in the hangar earlier this week. This is a jungle catfish, probably in the 25-30 pound range. They get immensely bigger, as this is only a small one. It was flown out with one of our pilots as a gift to someone in the hangar.

"Kumeer dad, a big bad bug..."

That was Brooklyn's frantic exclamation after finding this lizard on the front porch. We caught it and pet it a little while before letting it go whereupon I took it's photo.

They're a stampedin'

Recently we noticed a few caterpillars in our lime tree. Now, when the sun is out and warming the tree well, a whole herd of caterpillars arrives to congregate and warm themselves. I am close to eradicating them so they don't damage my tree, but I want to wait a little longer to see what they change into, if they do so of course. With that many caterpillars in one place you should see the pile of you know what below them. It looks like a mini cow corral.

Frogger

This morning as I arrived on my bike at the hangar I almost ran over a most peculiar creature. Turns out it was just a frog, of which species I haven't a clue. So, I put him in an ammo box until I had time later to get some photos of him. Pretty interesting huh?


I did have a flight to do today, but it was canceled early on in the morning. I am on a "have your flight canceled" streak lately. I think this is number 3 in the last 4 flying days.

Misc...

• We have our Bronco up and running again. Thursday and Friday I hung around the hangar waiting for flights to happen that never came together, so I worked on the Bronco. Long story short, I determined it was the fuel injectors that weren't working properly. This is something I don't know how to fix, so off to Puyo it went. Sure enough, 3 of my 8 injectors were plugged. Now the jungle jeep roars after having all of my injectors cleaned and re-tuned!
• Our worship team seems to be getting a little better every week at church. I was playing the guitar previously, but now we have another guitar player so I am giving the bass guitar a try. It has been a lot of fun.
• While in Cusuimi last week dropping off parts for the radio install, I saw these mushrooms growing on a dead tree stump. It doesn't take long for decay to take over in the jungle environment.

La Piña

For those of you who ever wondered how pineapple is grown, this is what is looks like just before it is picked. I had a friend in language school in Costa Rica that I could not convince that pineapples grow above ground, not below. A few years ago while driving in Panama, we drove by some HUGE farms for Dole Pineapple, and it reminded me of corn rows in Kansas, except it was pineapple. I took this picture yesterday in Bufeo after dropping off the kids for church camp.

From the logbook...feast or famine

After some quick pilot changes this morning, my flying plate suddenly got really full. I hauled a little bit of everything, and made it back to Shell at 5pm, just as a thunderstorm shut the airport down.

My first leg was to take two doctors to a military base in Montalvo. Then I went to Conambo and picked up 5 kids for a church camp sponsored by Ecuador for Christ in Bufeo. After dropping off my kids in Bufeo, I headed back to Shell to get round 2. I left Shell full of cargo and a water engineer for HCJB World Radio. We went to Makuma and dropped off 650 pounds of cargo, picked up two adults and 2 kids and then fought weather to make our way south to Acheuntza to drop off the Makuma passengers, who happen to be Shuar Bible translators. From Achuentza we flew to Cusuimi where I waited for the water engineer to gather some info for a future project. It just so happens that another pilot and other MAF staff were also in Cusuimi doing an FM radio install. They had forgotten some key parts and I brought those as well. Two hours later the water engineer and I took off for Makuma again to pick up 4 more people, all missionaries for a conference they have in Quito. From Makuma we then made my last landing , number 10, and called it a day.

Our radio install crew blasting off in Cusuimi on the way to install number two. They will be in the jungle until Thursday trying to complete 6-7 village installs before they return to Shell.

Misc...

• Not a lot happening here. We have had a rash of crummy weather, so I haven't been flying. Guess we'll see what happens tomorrow.
• Hopefully this weekend I will get our Bronco back up and running. I haven't had the time I want to dedicate to it fully. Until then we will just keep getting around "de pica" or by foot.
  
• We went on our bi-monthly grocery shopping trip this past weekend. The woman below was a fruit/snack vendor at a tourist type place we stopped at for a bathroom break. I recomend the conconut covered fried peanuts, but not the bathrooms.

La vida cuesta

So here are the reasons nothing has been posted...in one word...life. Details below...

• My car. It started running rough so I thought maybe an ignition/fuel problem. I installed a new fuel filter, and built a new ignition harness and put it on. Didn't seem to make much of a change. Things were still running rough. Long story short, my fuel pump finally went out, luckily in front of my house. We towed it to the hangar and placed it on the famous ramp of shame. Some day I will have time and put my extra pump in.
  
• My Internet. You have heard that "the dog ate my homework" right? Well, my dog ate my Internet cable. We share Internet with some co-workers. The signal is beamed over to my house and received by an antenna on my roof. My dog got hold of the cable leading from the roof down to my office and made mince cable out of it. After some failed attempts, I finally got the cable repaired and we obviously have Internet again.
• My neighbors. Remember a few posts ago when I posted a picture of our neighbors that have a bar attached to their house. Well, it has been active lately...really active. And not just at night. In fact, it is worse during the day. We cannot seam to understand why someone needs their music so loud. Luckily we have had a bit of reprieve today.
  

From the logbook...

One of my stops yesterday was into a village called Pacayacu (PAC) to drop off and education supervisor. He only needed around an hour to get his things done, so on my way back to Shell after stopping in Masaramu to pick up a patient, I landed again in PAC to get the supervisor. All of the kids were there from one of the classes and the kids of PAC are always fun and willing for a picture. I handed my camera off to one of the villagers (always an interesting and funny experience) and had her take our picture.

From the logbook...snow day

Okay, I know it doesn't snow in the jungle, but it obviously rains. When it rains so hard everything is shut down, I call those days snow days, referring to the days as a child when it snowed so much you didn't have to go to school. (I miss those) Yesterday, was one of those days. So, what did I do with myself...I found all the unpainted propeller spinners in our fleet and gave them a nice polishing. Today, I took this picture in Mashient, and yes the weather was very nice.

Playtime

Recently Shell received a new jungle gym in the town plaza. Driving home last night I snapped a quick shot with Sangay Volcano looming in the distance.

From the logbook...Volleyball, jungle style

Last week after I landed in Charapacocha (CHR) the community offered to feed me lunch. I hesitantly yet graciously accepted. I sat down at the table by myself in the middle of the community hut as everyone gathered around to watch me eat. They shortly thereafter brought me a banana leaf full of freshly cooked fish, just caught from the nearby river. It was piping hot, so I couldn't eat it right away. I also realized something else was piping hot...my passengers. I forgot I had two passengers in the airplane from another airstrip, and I quickly made my way back to the plane to let them out. On my way back to the lunch table, I saw a volley ball game going on and just had to get in. Of course the community pulled up their "bleacher" seats and took part in the action. They were hootin' and a hollerin' every time I spiked the ball. After about 10-15 minutes of giving those shorties a whooping, I returned to my table to finish my fish, which was good, and several days later I am not sick. PTL!

Church life

A few weeks ago I had my camera at church and took a few shots of what things look like from the inside. I thought you all might like to see what church looks like in a third world jungle community. For those that have visited us and gone to church with us, there are some things that just...capture your attention. Most are not bad or wrong, they are just...different.

Wanted...Hot bartender.

For another picture of what the neighbors look like on my street, you will see an interesting sight, at least for an American. The house across the street from us also has an attached bar. Lately they haven't been too noisy, in fact they haven't even been open. When the doors are open though it sure makes me appreciate zoning laws in the USA. If you see the little white paper on the bar part of the building, it is a help wanted sign. If I were to translate the spirit of the sign, it would read something like," Wanted, a hot looking young girl to be our bartender." As far as I know, they don't have any takers yet.

From the logbook...tour guide

I am the on call pilot this weekend, therefore I have today off from work. Yesterday was a fun day in the cockpit as I flew to all ends of the jungle. I had two flights, the first taking patients and people back home and bringing missionaries out, and the second was a "tour."


We are often asked to fly people (usually North Americans) to various communities so they can see a glimpse of jungle life, and then fly back home the same day. Yesterday's group was large enough that we used 3 airplanes to get them all into the Waorani village of Tiweano (TIW). This is a popular destination because it is close, about a twenty minute flight, and the people are a lot of fun and very accommodating. As pilots, we end up being the middle man tour guide, acting as a translator and answering a lot of questions.

From the logbook...Road kill

A friend of mine sent this picture to me today...I don't think I will have this problem here in Ecuador. According to the aircraft registration, or tail number, this appears to have happened in Namibia, Africa.

Although, we do hit things when we land. Usually it is just the world's dumbest birds, chickens. But some of us have hit dogs, cats, etc. All of us have had close calls with cows and horses, which we hope never actually happens.

From the logbook...

Again, we had poor visibility yesterday due to Brazilian cane field smoke. Therefore I was able to log some more instrument time, and 2 approaches to get back into Shell. Visibility was never better than 3 miles.

As I was setting up for my last jungle landing of the day in Masaramu MSR I noticed an airplane on the ground and pulled off to the side of the airstrip. After landing and getting my cargo and people off, the pilot came out and told me why he was there. After looking a little closer at his airplane it became obvious. The nose wheel tire was flat. Unfortunately he found out about his flat tire when he landed in MSR. He works for another aviation business in Shell, so we were casually friends before. He told me someone was bringing him another wheel/tire, but it might be a while until they arrive. He didn't have any tools, so I offered mine to help get the process started in the repair. Five minutes later I had the wheel off and split to see why it went flat. It seems the tire itself has a deformity on the inside that rubbed a hole in the tube, and finally it all came to a head.

From the logbook...

After an almost 3 week hiatus from the cockpit, I was back flying again. It was a lot of fun to be back into the routine and taking people and their things all over God's green jungle. Part of my flying today entailed taking some medical staff from the local mission hospital to a village called San Juan. We will be picking them up in a few days, but from another community as they are going to walk through the jungle to reach it.

We have awful visibility right now due to smoke supposedly from Brazilian cane fields. They are being burned and the smoke gets blown our way thousands of miles until it hits the Andes. The visibility was never above 3 miles today everywhere I went, and I even shot the instrument approach to get back into Shell just to play it safe. The one upside of flying through such thick smoke is it isn't bumpy like clouds. The downside is, that the smoke hides the clouds, which are bumpy.
One of my stops had me in Makuma for a bit of gas, and to pick up some passengers. One of our other pilots was also there, and was taking off just as I shut the engine down.

Hiking trip

Becca and I had been scouting out a new waterfall for a while, and we found the time to go hike into it today. It was about a 40 minute drive into the Andes from our house. The hike was great, and the waterfalls were amazing! Hopefully Becca will tell of "the accident" in her blog. She writes better than I do, and will convey a little better what happened.

Me and my girls in front of the waterfall...kind of. The mist was really heavy and I couldn't find a suitable place to take a photo without Madison getting soaked. She loves riding along in the backpack, which makes hikes like these all the more enjoyable.

Here is the shot of the big waterfall. It probably has a drop of around 100-120 feet. I hope to go there again, but this time with my swimming trunks on!

Fruit Stand

Traveling anywhere in Ecuador you will see fruit stands of various sizes, with various fruits according to their season. It is always cheap, and usually the quality is good.

Got Milk?

While driving down the mountain from the hot springs we saw this man taking his milk jugs to be sold in town. You see a lot of the "old style" milk industry as you take side roads and explore little hillside villages. Despite the lush greenery seen in the picture, it is very cold in the high country. This picture was taken at around 11,000 feet, and the sun didn't come out very much. The temperature was probably around 45 degrees and very humid with a light mist. Forty-five degrees used to be balmy when we lived in Colorado, but now we are not used to the cool/cold temperatures.

Next gas 200 miles

While away on our little Andean adventure, we went to a hot springs deep within the mountains, and far from anything else. I had plenty of gas to get to the nearest gas stations, one out east into the jungle, or one west back in the Quito area, but I didn't have any "exploring" gas. So, we asked around in the little town where the hot springs is located and found out there is a woman that sells gas. She fills up her 5 gallon jugs of gas and then raises the price around 30% for a total of $2.00 a gallon. No I am not complaining, I know the price of gas for all you "poor" people that live stateside, and I know our gas prices are cheap. Hey, there are some benefits to socialist thought and government subsidies.

Hubo muchos caballos silvestres

As we drove to the back side of Cotopaxi Nat' Park, we came across a lot of wild horses. In total we probably saw about 60-70 horses comprised of around 3 separate herds. Most of them had really long mains and tails, most reaching the ground.

Back home

We made it back from our little trip yesterday afternoon, although we had to park the car a block from our house and walk with all of our stuff to the house, but that is another story and another blog. We had an incredible time, and of course we took pictures. Now that Becca and I both have cameras again, my hard drive might be getting fuller, faster. We only took around 700 pics! With that many, I obviously cannot post all the good ones, of which there are many as well. So, I will start here and from time to time keep putting a picture on.

(click the photo to see the llama grazing and the climber's refuge right below the snow line.)

One of the places we went was Cotopaxi National Park. We had a GREAT time there! Not only is the centerpiece of the park incredible (Cotopaxi Volcano) but so was all the wildlife and the landscapes. We saw wild horses, llamas, awesome birds, Inca ruins, mountain lakes and streams and ancient lava flows (pictures to follow). For the first time in a long time we experienced cold temperatures and very hard wind. Did I mention we couldn't breathe? Most of where we drove had us around 11-12,000 feet. A few years ago when we lived in Colorado this wouldn't have been a big deal, but now we lowlanders get winded doing things above 8,000 feet (only 500 feet higher than our home in Colorado). I am sure we will revisit this nation park. You can drive almost all the way to the climber's refuge, but we thought we would wait until Madison gets a little bigger, being that it lies at around 15,000 feet.

Vacation

This week I am on vacation. Although I have had days off here and there since arriving in Ecuador a year and a half ago, this is our first dedicated, "on purpose," week long vacation. Today we are just hanging around the house, but tomorrow we are off on an adventure. We will be sure to tell about it when we get back this coming weekend, with pictures of course.

Sunset

Like I have said before, living on the equator isn't very conducive to vivid sunsets. But, there were sure some beautiful colors of blue yesterday as the sun went down behind Sangay Volcano.

Lichen?

Brooklyn and I went for a quick walk through the woods yesterday near our house and saw these weird lichens. At least that is what they looked like, except they were huge like only the jungle can make things, the largest being approx. 3 square feet.

Droplets

During a light rain today I caught these water drops forming on our banana plants in our back yard.

From the logbook...

Compared to previous days, Friday was a light day on the flight schedule. I still had 4 hours of flight time and 9 landings, but thankfully the weather didn't put up much of a fight. I still spent a little time in the soup, but nothing like Thursday. Once again, I was taking teachers all over tarnation. I think we have another solid week of flying teachers. On one of the return legs to Shell I also stopped in Capahuari (CAP) to bring out a government medical team.

Usually the community helps carry things to the airplane, and this time even the kids were joining in, helping to carry some paperwork and the tent.

I snapped a quick shot just before loading all of their stuff in CAP. As usual, this medical team was glad to come out of the jungle, especially since it was Friday.

From the logbook...Soup anyone?

One of the common terms that pilot's use to refer to their time flying in the clouds is flying in the soup. I had a big day of flying teachers again yesterday, and a lot of my day was spent flying in the soup. It seemed like my destinations had decent weather, but en route was bad all day long. For my two flights, I had to "shoot" the approach to get back into Shell, my last one which was down to minimums. Four hours of flying will make me tired anyway, but adding all the time in the soup as well definitely makes for sweet dreams.

From the logbook...More teacher flying

I was given a bit of a break today from the flight schedule. Things were still very busy in the hangar though, keeping flights going as airplanes returned. It was kind of like the pit crews of NASCAR... but different.

Late this afternoon I did make a short flight to a place called Pacayacu (PAC). Once again I had a load full of teachers and a LOT of cargo. Most of the weight was books and school supplies. You can tell by the photo above that the tail of Alas 10 is very close to the ground with the nose wheel almost in the air. ALL airplanes are like big teeter-toters, therefore it is always critical to have your weight balanced correctly or bad things can happen. I was at the very aft limit of my CG (center of gravity) on this flight. With the very capable Cessna 206, there are two ways to determine CG. One is to crunch the numbers and see where it lies. This doesn't take long and it is highly accurate. Usually though, I just use method number two (it's even quicker). To determine the CG, you load your airplane with everything that is going, except yourself. Then you carefully push the tail of the airplane onto the ground. If the tail comes back up on it's own, you are good to go. If the tail just stays there, you better do something different with where your weight is located. This method won't work for many airplanes and it is commonly known and used by many C206 pilots.

From the logbook...Teacher flying

We have been really busy flying literally hundreds of teachers and their cargo into the jungle these past few weeks. Lucky for me I am flying this week instead of flight coordinating. I have been everywhere these past few days, and logged a lot of flight time, and of course, landings. I wanted to share briefly the photo below of a place called Cononaco Bameno (CNC). I have written about it before. This village is home to Waorani Indians, and if your cannot tell by looking at the photo, many of them are still very "natural." Much of this is due to their isolation. They live about 140 miles from Shell, and there are not even any nearby roads for them. Everything is either transported by airplanes or rivers.

Sunday drivin'

As usual, we went for a drive this afternoon, after we watched the Denver Bronco's barely beat the Bills. (It was awesome!!!) Here's is a little of what we saw...These are growing in our front planters. For those of you about to loose your hard earned gardens and flowers due to the coming fall and freeze, eat you heart out! :)

Just your "average" roadside jungle flower.

Bromeliads grow everywhere. I am continually amazed by how many different types I see. Truly the handiwork of purpose and design, not happenstance. Did you know pineapples are parts of the bromeliad family?

Here is a shot of the ol' homestead. Our three fruit trees hide most of our house.


Our sweetie sitting in the back of the Bronco as we let our dog Maya run along the car for a while to burn some energy.

Coffee anyone?

On our latest trip to Quito, I shot this B737 leaving for takeoff from our hangar. I guess even the sides of airplanes are billboards now!

Jungle snow

Waking up this morning I found Sangay Volcano finally coming out from under it's cloudy blanket. It was beautiful to see a new and fresh coating of snow on it, drawing the snowy skirt ever closer to the jungle.

Master of the bush

I am coordinating flights again this week so there may not be a lot to talk about flight wise. But, that doesn't mean things aren't exciting from time to time around the hangar. One of our flights today entailed bringing out a patient that was bitten by a snake. The snake was a bushmaster. It is a beautifully nasty animal, and very stunning. Now, if you have been reading lately you will notice a lot of snakes. I am not a snake person! Although, I still marvel at their design and function.Here is a close up of it's awesome head (you can see where it was killed with a wooden rod right behind the skull). The snake came in a sack from the village of Copataza where the bite took place. The snake bite patients always try to bring the biting snake with them to make it easier to positively identify what kind of snake bit them, and the doctors in the hospital can administer the correct medicine/antivenin. I'm not sure why he has paper stuffed into his mouth, but that was fine with me. I have seen "dead" snakes do "lively" things, and a dead poisonous snake can still inject venom.
Here you can see that the snake is longer than I am, or around 7 feet from head to tail. Interestingly enough, we just watched a documentary on TV about this species this past weekend. It is not to be messed with or taken lightly. From what I read on the Wiki link above, and saw on the TV show, the patient we hauled out was lucky to be alive.

Time from bite to arrival at the hospital...around 3 hours.
Time from bite to hospital without airplane service...?

A time to relax

This weekend has been a good one for relaxing. Here are a few photos of what made it nice...

We took a drive yesterday to eat at a place about 40 minutes from our house. To some that may seem like a long drive just to eat, but that is just it. We like the drive, and it helps get us out of the house. Did I mention the food was really good?

The restaurant had a nice garden to stroll though as well. So of course I took pictures. Did you know there are over 25,000 different species of known orchids in the world? That's amazing!


Yesterday on the way home from the restaurant one of the rivers we cross was really flowing. Actually, it is always "really flowing" but I finally stopped to get a picture. Just 50 yards downstream this river dumps into the Pastaza River.


Today Brooklyn and I practiced her bike riding skills on the roof. We rode yesterday as well, and I found something that really helps Brooklyn. I used duct tape and taped her feet to the pedals. Ya, I know that sounds a little...dangerous, but she really got the feel better of what both of her legs should be doing at the same time that way. Before, she would push one pedal down while the other leg hung limp, and the do the same on the other side. She wasn't getting anywhere to fast. Today I joined her riding Becca's bike. It was a great time, and our dog Maya had fun too.