Flying Santiago, Chile to Lima, Peru (by Jack)

January 23, 2017

Today we begin the "sprint" home. Our plan is to fly each day for the next four days arriving in Austin (KAUS) on January 25. The pilots plus Becky will continue on to Jackson Hole (KJAC) on January 26 to "close the loop" on the circumnavigation by returning to where the trip officially started last August.

The flight for today is from Santiago, Chile (SCEL) to Lima, Peru (SPJC).  While it is a long flight at 1,430 NM (per the flight plan, not direct), it should be fairly routine and the weather is good.

Arriving at the Santiago FBO, Giuseppe got to see an old flame of his...an Eclipse jet! This was even one of the latest-and-greatest 550 models...

It was a long taxi for departure, but once airborne the flying was as expected.  We saw some very tall mountains along the way. Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the western hemisphere at 22,838 FT....

 The one site we hoped to catch a glimpse of were the mysterious Nazca Lines south of Lima...

When we approached the area of the Nazca Lines, everyone had their noses to the windows...

But, unfortunately, it was cloudy below and the lines could not be seen. But the ever creative Carolyn improvised...

As we started our descent into Lima, Giuseppe made one of his great educational videos of the entire approach and landing (23 minutes) that only a pilot could love...

https://youtu.be/K4gHylyqZQA

Despite being on the Pacific coast, Lima is very dry...almost desert-like...

We were parked next to Peruvian military helicopters on the ramp...

We normally fuel on arrival, but the handler said it could take an hour or more for the fuel truck to arrive due to fueling airliners and a shift change for the fueling staff. So, we reluctantly decided to get fuel the next morning prior to departing.  Due to the time zone change, it was still mid-afternoon in Lima, so we dropped our bags at our airport hotel and headed to the historic district for a few hours.

Tomorrow we will head for Liberia, Costa Rica and will accomplish the last major control point of the trip...crossing the equator at a point at least 90 degrees from our easternmost equatorial crossing in Africa on January 8.