Sharon and Pat after 32 hours travel. Sao Paulo, Brazil 1996
As my sister Pat and I boarded the plane to leave Iguazu Falls in Argentina we noticed that we appeared to be the only tourists on the plane. The door was shut and the usual safety and information message was being given in the national language, Portuguese. We didn’t understand the language so we just sat there and then they said everything again in a very heavily accented English. So heavily accented that we only caught a few words, but the message is generally the same all over the world, so no worries. I looked around, it seemed that those passengers close by to us were looking and smiling in our direction so I smiled and turned back to the window. The plane took off, barely clearing the trees as we sisters held our breath, then the engine sound changed, like the engine power had been cut back. Wow, I’ve heard that sound at altitude before but never so close to the ground, something must be wrong.
Pat’s scared eyes looked into mine as she grabbed my hand, “we’re going to die”, she shouted. Being the big sister and wanting to appear calm, I just looked at Pat, smiled and said, “I guess our memories might not last as long as we hoped”. Then we noticed that the plane was making a slow turn as if going back to the airport, maybe we would be alright after all. In a split second the pilot turned the plane up on its wing with our window facing down and then we understood, we were right above the Falls we had come to see. We had walked the scaffolding boardwalks over the water to the very edge of the Falls, we’d gone in a boat right up to the boiling water pounding over the Falls with all the spray and deafening sound, and now we were seeing the best view possible, from the air. FANTASTIC!!
photo by Pat
Without a second thought about all the emotions we had just experienced, my sister whipped out her camera and took this picture. It was the best possible overview of the Falls and the pilot only did it on our side of plane. Ah, now we understood, the pilot had done that for us, the only tourists on the plane. I glanced around at the passengers and they were still smiling and then, so did Pat and I. What a relief when we climbed to altitude and proceeded to Sao Paulo, Brazil to catch our flight back home.
June 1, 2010 at 3:49 AM |
And it still scares me to think about it!! It took me a long time to enjoy flying again – years!!!
June 7, 2010 at 10:10 AM |
Pat, do you remember walking out on the rickety scaffolding walkways and meeting an American film crew filming the falls for a Met Life commercial? Makes me look at that commercial every time it comes on.