Flying High

Ushuaia Autumn 2007
Originally uploaded by agypsy.

Today I went flying and it was just magic.

The last few days have been very mild and so still, that it seemed like a good idea at the time, and so I went. There is an Aero Club here and they take flights over the city and the mountains.The decision was galvanised this morning when I saw the smoke from all the Asados( bar-b-ques) over the city, and more importantly from the downstairs neighbour, where los perros live. That signalled that the family would be sitting in the drive for most of the pm. enjoying a "peaceful" asado, with 2 1/2 dogs going ballistic a full 3 feet away. The 3rd dog is still pretty sick, so I don't think he can bark at the moment. So, decided that I had to go for my walk, so why not walk to the Aero Club and ask?

What a great decision! Decided to hang the expense and go for an hour. The day was just perfect, no wind, lots of sunshine and blue skies with just a few clouds. The flight took us up past Mt Olivia along the valley of Route 3 past Cero Castor - the ski fields and over the mountains to Lago Fagnano, the large inland lake. Inland is a lot more snow covered, with many of the rivers frozen already. With the mild weather a lot of the snow around the city has disappeared. It was very beautiful, and there are lots of high close to the summits. We flew back over the mountains, and along the coast to Harberton Estacion, where I went by road a few weeks ago, and the back up the Beagle Channel past Puerto Williams, which is the southernmost "town" - the Argentinians argue that it's not a city and therefore they still claim the southernmost city for Ushuaia - just more of the not so friendly rivalry that exists between Argentina and Chile.

As we came back up the centre of the Beagle the pilot asked if I wanted to fly the plane- ¡ What a question,! did I ever! So I flew the little plane back up the middle of the Beagle Channel. What a BUZZ!!!