We got up at 4 am to eat breakfast and pack the bus. The ride down to the airfield was long, but nice. We got to see a lot of the countryside and people in the smaller settlements/towns. We stopped every once in a while to check the bus and to let Sam get some air cause he was sick. The road was sometimes paved, sometimes gravel, and sometimes paved in the middle but with gravel on the sides. Mounds of dirt piled on one side of the road made for interesting passing with oncoming traffic. We got to the grass airstrip in about 4 hours and 45 minutes.
The weather at the airfield was more pleasant than it was in Puerto. No rain yet. The plane wasn’t back when we arrived, so we unloaded the bus and weighed ourselves and cargo. The plane could only carry 400 kg per trip so the cargo has to be very accurate. Gary is the pilot. His wife Cynthia had several treats for us to eat and drink while we waited. Banana bread, sticky rice, bananas, roasted peanuts, and pineapple. The plane needed 4 trips to the tribe to get all the people and gear transferred. The home at the airfield was very nice and “tropical feeling”. I flew in on the last flight with Al and Larry. It was a very smooth flight from liftoff to landing. Gary, the pilot, made the landing more interesting by coming in from the west where the hill at the end of the landing strip made a straight landing impossible. We swooped in from the side and straightened out at the moment just before touchdown. The stall buzzer went off just before landing, just as Larry had talked about on our way to LAX.
We unloaded and crossed the river into the village. Lots of helpers, mostly children, came to help carry gear and say hello. Sam, Larry, Andy, and Richard were playing catch with a football. The villagers were watching timidly and with occasional smiles when the ball was dropped or landed in the stream. I met Nilo who I would later find out was a 12 year old boy here and is very unfortunate health-wise and money-wise. Nonetheless he is very friendly (the most friendly) and smiles a lot. He is wearing only a cotton vest that barely covers his private parts. Not at all when he is jumping around or rolling on the ground. I also met Jun Jun who seemed a little standoffish. He looks about 15 or 16 (I later found out that he was 16). We ate dinner and it was Filipino food. It was very good Pancit Canton and Pancit Behon. We all went to bed after dinner at about 8:30 pm.
