4/2/2002 -- They say that summer comes bringing several things to light. It will be another year soon, the doors come off the jeep, the top comes down and the ol mango cap gets another dose of fading.
I got a call from a friend needing to move an airplane to the southern latitudes. Below a certain latitude you don't ask many questions. What did you do for a living? How long have you been here? What do you do with your airplane?
I needed the money, summer was on its way and I called a guy I used to run with. I met him at the airport, talked about the flight down south over a sandwich, checked the leaks below the airplane, threw a backpack in, a flashlight, some batteries and a passport.
We were airborne over the California fields pointed south to deliver this ratty airplane. We wrapped the airplane between the mountains, diving along their peaks just east of the Los Angeles Basin talking of the times we used to run together.
Don had made his peace and hesitated as we invited Mr. Copenhagen. We talked of the jungles we would overfly in the next couple hours as we filled a spit cup nestled between the faded throttles.
We spend a night in the west texas town of El Paso. Visted some old friends and ended up strumming a few songs at the old piano bar cave just over the border in Mexico. Morning was difficult but we left pointed at the sun and fueled in Brownsville Texas after negotiating some weather about Del Rio. Sure it wasn't on course, but gas was paid for and the canyon looked bigger from on top...
Over the ocean enroute to Veracruz a vibration and some odd stares at eachother later, we noticed the old rusty fuel tanks were both venting fuel from the oxidized caps which must have flown off in the storm. We pulled the power back, thew in a fresh chew and settled in for a coast in to shore. The right engine was sputtering as we touched down in Merida just minutes before the airport closed for the night.
With no money or place to stay, the overweight customs lady lent us a couch in her living room where Don slept, and I stayed up plotting our next day to Panama.
The morning found us waking to kids as we took a cab back to the airport. Some duck tape, a napkin and a straw seemed to do the trick. We topped off the fuel and headed south to the jungles of the border.
We flew around volcanoes, valleys, waterfalls and farm fields cut into mountains some thirty feet off the deck wondering if the girl with the pretty brown eyes was waving a hello or wondering what this flying machine was doing so low...
A stop in Tapachula, Costa Rica, and we were in Panama. The voice on the other side of the phone offered us $6,000 cash if we would fly just another hour south and deliver the aircraft to Colombia. We were out of chew, tired and had airline tickets out of Panama so we stopped on schedule and parked on a remote corner of the airport. We left the keys under the mat as we stepped over an Iguana.
Twenty dollars of beer later we were asleep at 4am on the American Airlines boarding area awaiting the 8am flight to Miami.
Don looked through his backpack and found another fresh tin of tobacco, a five dollar bill and a note from an old girlfriend. Damn. We laughed as we drank another beer during boarding thinking about the $6,000 dollars waiting just a jungle and world beyond the border, wondering what the voice on the other end of the phone was really offering...we laughed, sat down next to a few tourists heading north and woke up some five hours later...
