Hi Everyone

As we had no real idea of when we would be allowed to fly into Peruvian air space and one of my objectives was to visit Katia Hichinose in Lima, I caught a commercial flight to Lima last night. Katia Hichinose was a lions exchange student with us in ’97 and returned for a summer in ’02. This will allow me to spend time with our Peruvian daughter and meet Barb and Lorne in Pisco south of Lima.

The result being less time on the ground for CFIGT and if we drop the planned stop in Lima we should make Chile with fewer airport stops. One does gain an appreciation for the FBO turn around times we are accustomed to.

Harold

1. Katia Hichinose leaving for work as a financial controller for a Houston based petro chemical company

One of many similar views of the Andean mountains

Archeological dig dating to the pre Inca period, ~ 1300 AD or during the Ichmay cultural period, one block from the Hichinose house in suburban Lima.

Leaving Cali Colombia, through a mountain pass

flowers in front of Guayaquil airport

Taken outside of the Guayaquil airport, just to remind those of us from Sask. there are flowers in December.

I think we all fell asleep crossing the Equator, so no pictures of 0 degrees latitude ( Note- we are not all sleeping at the same time!!!!!)

Lorne working up an appetite waiting at the Guayaquil airport

Katia and her mother, after chemotherapy Senora Hichinose has the same hair style as Harold

Ecuador Day 2 %$###@(*&^^%*$* -

Hi All,

Dec.14 - We´ve got a beautiful day for flying but are waiting "patiently" for permission to fly into Peru. I am now on a first name basis with Liliana in Lima as yesterday we called every hour to check on the status of our request, only to be told to call back 40, 50, 60 minutes later. First they asked for further information on my medical, hours later it was for Lorne and Harold. Finally they pointed out that the call letters on my insurance policy were for the plane CFEGT not CFIGT. So a call to Halifax this morning appears to have this straightened out. (The Halifax office was the first one open in Canada this morning).

The only good thing that came about yesterday was when we decided to ship Harold on ahead by commercial airline to visit with his "daughter" Katia in Lima. We got word that he arrived safely and we are happy that at least he can use this down time to visit. our hopes are to meet in Pisco, Peru tomorrow.

Interestingly enough when we arrived at the hotel yesterday evening it had no power, so our $56 rooms were reduced to $46 including breakfast, taxes, internet, supper and free drinks. Would have been great had we been in the mood to celebrate. Rather we opted for a walk along the Malicon, the boardwalk along the river. It was very nice and we were treated to the sounds of a live naval brass band. The 100+ musicians played Spanish songs and a few Spanish Christmas carols which made me very homesick. However we should be in the air soon.

Pictures

1.My boys in Panana

2. Brahmas in Colombia

3. Colombian village in the mountains

4. Ecuador naval band

5. Lorne at the Malicon

6. Ecuador terminal

Sitting ducks

Well it looks like another day was spent in the airport waiting for flight permission from Peru. I have a feeling our ducks are a little frustrated right now. Every time they call Peru to find out if their permission is approved they seem to have to fill out and fax new forms. The last I heard they had been at the airport since early this morning waiting for confirmation.

The ducks have also split up for the time being, Harold has gone ahead by commercial carrier to visit friends, they will meet back up in Lima when Barb and Lorne finally get permission.

I sure hope they have Bacardi 8 in Ecuador, otherwise the co-pilot could be getting cranky.

We wish them better luck tomorrow!!!

Fun computer stuff

Hi all,

For those of you that want to do some more techy stuff to enjoy flying with the lost ducks, here is a fun idea. First you need google earth on your computer - you can download that for free. If you have an older version you can up date it for free as well. After you have this, take the lost ducks coordinates from the tracker page and enter them in Google earth.
Now you can see what the landscape is like and have access to many pictures of the various landmarks along the way. For those of you who are a bit more childlike like I am, you can enter the flight simulator mode(Ctrl-Alt-A) of Google earth and see if you fly as well as the Lost Lucks.

John

December 12, 2007

Hello fellow flyers and friends,

I haven't had to make any comments about the trip so far,but everything is just moving along great, that is if you are a turtle!! Barb is doing a great job of getting us through the incredible amount of paper work and running around. We getup early get to the airport and after a couple of hours of being chased around and letting the dogs sniff through the plane and luggage it's off to the next fuel stop and that is it for the day usually.

We are seeing some incredible country (through the holes in the clouds). We are in Guayaquil Ecuador tonight had a great tour of the city and a huge smorg supper (another great job by Barb). Looking forward to Peru tomorrow if they give us permission at 9A.M. Take care everyone we are thinking of you at home looking after things. PS. We crossed the Equator today!!

Lorne

December 10 & 11th

Passed a very nice day in Panama yesterday, Lorne took us for a tour to the Miraflores locks on the Panama Canal and we watched many boats go through. Then spent an hour at the airport trying to complete some paperwork to speed things up for an early morning departure to get in lots of sunlight hours and a minimum of cloud build up. Still took us 1.5 hours this morning to get all paperwork complete but finally took off for Colombia, which is where we are right now, in Cali, Colombia. If the bureaucracy was bad in Panama it was incredible here. Had hoped to enter Ecuador today, but got held up by the Colombian officials who sent us to no fewer than 10 offices, many of them repeats, three times through security and we still do not have all the paperwork done to fly out in the morning!! Oh well, we have yet to hit Peru which is supposedly worse.

Flying has been good, both plane and co-pilots behaving well!

Pictures:

1. Panama canal, Miraflores locks

2. Colombia search of plane

December 9th, 2007

Hello Everyone,

Yesterday was a wowee kind of day. We were at the airport in Ilopango, El Salvador at 7 Am waiting for the mechanic to check our alternator. Met up with several Guatemalan pilots that spoke fantastic English waiting for starter parts. They suggested that we might have better luck in Guatemala City for parts, etc. They even offered to spend the day with us if we followed them home. But luck was with us as Juan the mechanic found a broken wire and sent us on our way before 9am.

As we travelled along the coast we tried to pick out a few airstrips for our next landing. Saw a couple with promise, along marinas or the water. Met with another Juan, owner of the marina and airstrip in attached photo. Definitely need to return.

Stopped in Liberia, Costa Rica for ice cream, (Ok and fuel), where it cost $173 Colones to land ($0.36 USD) since they had no change we told them to use the change from the dollar to buy a coffee. However for our $0.36 investment we got to fill out migration forms, go through security and spend about an hour running around getting airborne.

Crossing Honduras and Nicaragua was a non event except that I took alot of ribbing from my copilots as the Nicaraguan controller asked for my email address. This was evened out a little as the customs official (female) in Panama took a shine to Harold. Lorne and I think she was a little disappointed that we were here for less than 48hrs. Wowee covered 5 countries in one day.

Pictures:

Yeah, it´s only a broken alternator wire!

Juan´s marina and runway

Potential runways for the next visit 1

Potential runways for the next visit 2

By coincidence as we departed Puebla for Tuxtla, Barb’s route traveled over one of Antonio Bustillo’s pig barns. Below us is the one he refers to as The Canadian Site, which has about 10,000 head of Canadian pigs.

Harold

December 10th

For those of you that have been wondering why the tracker is showing the ducks as being in the middle of the ocean off the coast of Panama since last night.............don't worry. Someone (I was not told who) accidentally unplugged the tracker as they were on their way to the airport. They arrived in Panama safe and sound (although they have a story that they said they would not share willingly). I talked to Barb this morning and it sounds like they wanted to wait until tomorrow at dawn before leaving as the weather is very hot.

Robin I also wanted to let you and all the other Saskatchewanites know that the forecast for tomorrow is 28 C and the wine has just gone on sale for Christmas at 40% off.

Bye for now, I hope to have more stuff from our happy ducks soon.