I think I´ve learnt what I really love about travel is the travel itself. All the best stories, all the most exciting moments, come while being in motion. Probably because developing world transportation is a full adventure in its own right, providing rich details and a rush of adrenelaine. That is what I´m addicted to - the puzzle of how to get from A to B, establishing the solution, executing it, then sitting back and waiting for all the serendipitous, comical moments that are guaranteed to arrive well before the destination.
Arriving and exploring are just as fun too, but once that´s completed, and most people would be ready to settle in and relax for a few days, I find myself restless and ready for the next destination. So I start the process over...
Thurs June 4 (journal entry)
This is the first time in all my airport visits I´ve actually been asked to get on the scales with my baggage. Together we weigh a healthy 75kgs - that´s the first indication this is no ordinary flight. I am flying Nature Air to Puerto Jimenez (PJ) on Costa Rica´s Osa Peninsula. The airline claims to be the first carbon nuetral airline in the world, but I´m not really sure how that works or if it´s somehow related to my weight.
I´m told to take a seat next to the check-in counter and wait for boarding. There is no security check - just sit and wait. Next to me is a door directly onto the tarmack which is about 30 feet from the main entrance to the airport, the same one I used to get in. I wait and five others join me. Then a man in uniform arrives and asks to see our passports.
"We´re early, but we´re all here." He says. ¨Let´s go."
I realize he is our captain.
He leads us single file onto the tarmack and we follow him in a pin straight line, making a series of precise 90 degree turns to avoid traffic lanes and get to the plane. As we approach, he says he needs a volunteer to sit with him up front. I am the first to shout "MEEE!". The pilot pulls down the door of the plane which, when inverted, becomes a set of steps. The sign reads "One person at a time."
I am the last to board and when I get on I see one of the other passengers, a guy travelling with his girlfriend, has stolen my co-pilot seat. Jerk. I am stuck in what I call the dog´s box. (Any seat in the way back of a vehicle usually reserved for the family pet.) It´s probably just as well. Once we get airborn I will be leaping from window to windor, slobbering with glee and wagging my non-exitant tail with 1000 table-clearing beats a minute.
There are only eight seats on the plane, including the pilot´s. In the back, next to all our suitcases stacked on top of each other and secured by cargo netting, I am still only about twelve feet from the cockpit. I can see all the controls, the radar and every move my hero makes. If Woven Journeys fails I will definitely be enrolling in flight school.
I haven´t been on a plane as tiny as this since my parents took my brother and me up in a sea plane when I was twelve. We taxi to the runway and, as he revves the engines, you can feel the power building in the plane. Struggling to contain itself, the plane swivles from side to side, until the pilot release it. We tear down the run way and become air borne in seconds flat. The G-force is far more intense than a commercial airlines and I have to fight hard to stay upright. We bounce, rattle, climb, dive, judder and jolt like being tossed in a cocktail shaker and, in truth, the plane isn´t much biggger than one. The clouds, as usual, provide the worse turbulance, but I am loving it and once we´re above them it´s a beautiful sunny day. I can see out of every window including the front. Between the pockets of clouds there jungle covered mountains, mangrove lagoons and endless miles of coastline.
Eventually, through the cockpit window, I can see the Gulfo Dulce, one of only four fjords in the tropics and one of the most beautful places I will ever visit. We fly up the middle of the gulf with the land looking like long, moss covered fingers dipping themselves into the water. We bank right towards PJ and soon the runway is visible looking stunted and short by most standards. We bounce, skip and come to a perfect stop in between a transportation graveyard of rusted buses and prop planes on one side and a human cemetary full of tombstones and Virgin Mary candles on the other. I think they call that poetic irony, but however you return to the ground the airport will accomodate you.
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