The Journey - Sunday, December 12

MMBT (Bahias de Huatulco, Mexico) => MSSS (Ilopango, San Salvador, El Salvador) => MRLB (Liberia, Costa Rica) - Leg Completed - 4.5 hours

I'm writing this after just having finished breakfast at the hotel in Costa Rica. I don't have any clue as to when I will be able to post anything, as the hotel's internet is apparently down for an indeterminate amount of time. Oh well, guess you all will just have to wait!

Sunday, December 12 Trip Report

Having a night of occasionally interrupted sleep from the Huatulco festivities, my wake up Sunday morning was met by yet another perfect day. Why would anyone not want to live here? Anyway, the morning brought our normal routine of breakfast, final packing and then a taxi to the airport. It was here that the all too familiar learning process of a new (to us) Mexican airport started anew.

In most of these airports, the tower/approach controllers are required to speak English, but not the ground personnel. It is here that I am reminded of my recurring learning lesson on every one of these trips. . .my Spanish is TERRIBLE. Like Jerry said, "Marc you're Spanish is perfect when it involves food, but not so good any other time." Survival instinct, I guess. Because of our lack of fluency, our check out process was slightly less than smooth, but luckily, without any major snags. After much pointing and at least five different confused Mexican faces (and two American ones), our hour long paperwork filing and fee paying for departure was complete. The preflight and takeoff were as normal as always, and we were on our way.

This leg of the trip certainly involved some stresses. I realized that you can do as much research as possible, but fear of the unknown will always have its place. Compounding that fear was the inability to reach IZT (have to look this place up) tower frequency for flight following, as was assigned to us upon departure from Huatulco tower's control. Luckily, a second frequency provided to us, Media Control, was just readable enough to receive necessary instructions. Under their control, we proceeded southbound until within reach of Tapachula tower, the last airport prior to Guatemalan airspace.

Now, everywhere I read and everything I saw on the charts say that contact with Guatemalan radio was necessary prior to entering their airspace. After Media control was unable to give us a frequency and Tapachula tower stated that all we needed to do was contact another tower control (I still have no idea who it was) in Guatemala, we were slightly more than nervous. That feeling was compounded upon our initial attempt to contact this tower came back 1 x 1 (pilot talk for loud x clear on a scale of 1-5). Fortunately, after several attempts with the radio squelch turned on and the volume set to 95%, we were able to transmit the required information and receive the proper instructions from them. Calming down, the rest of the leg proceeded without fear. Crossing into El Slavador was a breeze, and the landing into Ilopango was fantastic with amazing views of a mountainous and very crowded San Salvador.

We found clearing customs and immigration at Ilopango to be a wonderfully easy experience. Little did we know that another jolt to the nerves was about to come. After filing our flight plan we were just about to walk out of the flight service office when the official there asked, "You do have your permit number to overfly Nicaraguan airspace, correct?" My heart sank through my shoes, down under ground and settled somewhere deep within the earth's core (probably under Nicaragua!). I explained to him my efforts to receive the proper permit number, and with a few wry smiles and some shrugs of the shoulders, we decided that even without it in hand, it was worth a shot. We thought what the heck. . .we had come this far, and we could always turn around. We then taxied over to the fuel pumps, topped off the tanks and headed out.

A spectacular takeoff southeast bound over a beautiful, large lake and some very green mountains had us in the air for the final leg of the trip. After that great view was gone from the windows, I was left alone with my nervous feelings (Jerry SAID he wasn't nervous), in a single engine airplane, about 20 miles offshore, over the Pacific Ocean, just north of Nicaraguan airspace. After switching to El Salvador's control and flying to our first waypoint, we were instructed on our moment of truth. "N779TW, Upon reaching ANAPO intersection, contact Managua approach on 119.4 for clearance into Nicaraguan airspace," a friendly voice stated. "Yeah, alright, we will," I thought. That 15 minutes between our position and that intersection was L-O-N-G. After what seemed like an eternity, the moment was upon us.

"Managua approach, muy buenos tardes (thought I could butter him up a bit), N779TW, over ANAPO intersection, 1-5 thousand 500 feet." The response came quickly, "N779TW, Managua approach, roger copy position over ANAPO intersection, 1-5 thousand, 500 feet. . ." Can you guess what came next? Well I'm writing this, aren't I? ". . .cleared into Nicaraguan airspace." And that was that. Like Jerry said, "The Journey is the destination, Marc." And I sat back and thought again of that moment north of Guaymas when that phrase had first been uttered, "No problema."

The remainder of the flight into Costa Rica was beautiful, mostly because of the views of the coastlines and the Pacific with a low sun in the skies to the west. We landed in Liberia without cause and were marshaled in to park.

Again, having entered another country, the customs, immigration and private flight paperwork took us at least an hour, complete with all the pointing and confused looks yet again. With it all finished, we sat down in a taxi, happy to have someone else do the navigating, for an hour ride to the hotel. With the windows open, a warm breeze blowing throughout the car and a Costa Rican sunset on the horizon, I sat back and thought, "We did it."

We arrived at the hotel to find a huge, unbelievable resort. Exhausted, but excited, we checked in, grabbed dinner and of course, a few celebratory drinks. After a long and at times, stressful day, we turned in for another early night.

Now it's time to have some fun. . .on the ground!

-Marc