Into the jungle

4/16/08

The rain began to fall softly at 7:30 am and didn’t abate until 2:30 pm. Florence, the Welsh nurse, and I spent the entire morning waiting for a flight out of Shell to Makuma. Although the planes can fly in the rain, they need clear sight of the mountains for take off. The dismal cloud cover had refused to budge all morning, and our flight was threatening to be cancelled when the weather began to improve. Once the rain stopped, the sky cleared and we were given clearance to fly. After weighing ourselves and our luggage, as well as grocery supplies for Norma and Jim Hedland, we quickly boarded the small plane and departed with our jungle pilot.

It took 25 minutes in our little Cessna 6 seater to arrive at the soft green landing strip of the jungle station. We passed over the meandering Rio Pastaza en route and could see isolated jungle villages dotted along the banks and slopes of the Amazon as our plane flew south. The expanse of the jungle was amazingly vivid from the lofty height of our tiny plane. The canopy stretched as far as the eye could see in a rolling sea of green with little to break or punctuate it. A few scattered clouds floated over the tree tops and every now and then a river or road broke the patterned jungle quilt. With a wide sweeping curve, keeping the mountains to the east, we flew over the small village of Makuma and then descended into the green.