The Weekly Wad: Good PR, Part II: The Fifteen-Minute Flamenco

Planes are not supposed to make instantaneous, sharp left turns when approaching a runway; at least not in my opinion. Fighter pilots probably get a pass on that rule. While a lover, and certainly no fighter pilot, I love gazing down from my window-side seat, upon a carpet of land rolling flatly and serenely toward a level horizon. I’m also madly smitten with the plane itself gliding straight, its wings tranquilly cutting through air. Mostly, though, I’m head-over-heels for a proper landing; one in which the craft is gradually posited from air to strip as delicately as hot dish to table via a steady waiter’s hand.

Pou and I had made the one-hour journey east from San Juan to Fajardo after what would become a regular morning pit-stop at the fashionable, neighborhood Starbucks near his apartment. Our intention was to catch a ferry taking us from the “big island” to Culebra, one of two floating specs of Puerto Rican territory off its eastern coast. It was home to Flamenco Beach; reputedly one of the world’s most beautiful locales for real, quality sunburn. Pou had actually never been and so Culebra was going to be a new facet of the commonwealth for both us.

Let’s see; what’s a good metaphor to describe the line at the ferry terminal? How about Soviet breadline? Simply replace winter shawls and Marxist deprivation with beach towels and Puerto Rican resignation. The line was at a standstill, which didn’t seem to bother the beachgoers waiting in front of the scruffy ticket window. Meanwhile, the cashiers behind the glass, appeared to be enjoying a smoke break of elongated proportions. No one seemed too concerned that the ferry was scheduled to leave in less than an hour and not a single ticket had been sold.

Pou had clearly spent too much time on the mainland, particularly DC, because after about fifteen minutes of waiting, he got antsy and started to loudly complain in English and Spanish about the lack of line movement to anyone in his vicinity. The rest of the queue just stood around as if the delay was a regular occurrence they had expected. Much like remarking to someone in an elevator about errant weather, I looked at the woman in front of me and gave her the ‘ole can-you-believe-this-shit smirk/eye roll combo. It was the best I could do. Pou, his lack of height notwithstanding, kept trying to look over and to the side of everyone in front of us in order to find the invisible obstruction holding everyone up.

Finally, forty minutes later, our savior made her debut. A thick woman, in loud, fuzzy pink, rolled up to the thin metal bars separating the lined from the lineless. Shrilly, she advertised the impending arrival of large white vans able to ferry the ferry passengers to the local airport for a fifteen-minute, twenty-seven dollar flight to Culebra. Considering we made ourselves get up at six in the morning to get to Fajardo, an uneventful outpost, we had little choice but to follow the Energizer bunny to the airport-bound van.

It was a stretch calling a shack adjacent to its glorified driveway an airport, but that is what the sign said. As the van pulled closer, my heartbeat began to increase rapidly as I knew what “fifteen-minute flight” was really a euphemism for: a ride on a propeller plane.

I don’t do well with prop planes. They have the wind resistance of kites; the stability of hapless drunks. More so, every passenger must state their weight when asked at the ticket counter, which was more than slightly disconcerting. The question itself reveals two disturbing things: that the plane has only a certain weight capacity which, if slightly exceeded, could plunge us into oblivion; and that my doctor has said the same thing about my weight.

When Pou translated that very question after the lady at the ticket counter uttered it, a spotlight shown on me that I wasn’t prepared to stand under. There wasn’t enough light. Pou, to my right, kept stressing the importance of giving them as accurate a number as I could since we were going to be shot skyward in a tiny, narrow tube where the total weight bears as much importance as the wings. Regardless of his sound reasoning, I flat-out lied and told the lady at the counter a number that was fifteen below what any scale on the planet beneath my feet would read. Then I repeated it even after Pou gave me an are-you-sure-asshole head tilt/half-smile combo? The strange thing is that I still don’t know why I had fibbed. I suppose I was uncomfortable answering an uncommonly personal question in front of uncommon people and/or I was most definitely trying to flirt with the woman behind the counter.

When it came time to fly, the mocha-hued counter lady dictated the seating arrangement, via clipboard. Pou sat to my left in the winged crawlspace and I took the seat assigned to me on the right side of the plane. A woman of comparable size to myself, sat two “rows” ahead of me, right next to where the pilot was going to sit. The guy in front of me was also no waif and it quickly became apparent that the larger folks were all seated on the right side of the plane. I hoped the luggage and/or a rhino would be weighing down the other side.

When the tall pilot entered, donning his headgear, he literally had to almost squirm into the craft in order to position himself next to the ample sample occupying the seat next to him. Pou, meanwhile, continued to sport his gargantuan smile partly out of habit, but more likely because my heart was pounding through my shirt. There was, after all, a violently revolving propeller three feet away from my head.

Take-off was shaky. So was the door of the plane. A narrow crack between the floor of the cabin and the door revealed nothing but sky. Every time a gust of wind hit us, every bolt of the aircraft shook overdramatically. Likewise, so did I. At one point I accidentally hit the passenger in front of me with my hand as I desperately tried to hold on during a brief bout of turbulence.

We were flying low enough to where we could see the deep water of the Caribbean gradually lighten to a coral hue. Solitary, rocky outcrops sat below us, surrounded by their own white water orbits making them planets adrift. The trip was as quick as advertised and for maybe ten of those fifteen minutes, turbulence-free. I turned to Pou once I began to relax and he was having a jolly old time laughing at my expense. During a brief stint in roller coaster interest in my younger days, Pou embodied the thrill-seeking yahoo, waving their hands in the air, while I clutched the metal bar in front of me in shear terror.

As the tiny island of Culebra came in full, glorious view, I couldn’t help but gasp at the site of a nearly horseshoe-shaped beach below us. The closer we got, the more crystalline the waters appeared. I’m not a beach person at all, so I was surprised – in between praying – by how impressed I was. Flamenco Beach was stunning, aerially speaking, and as we would soon learn, even more so while lying on its warm, almost too-perfect sands.

The plane glided close to the island’s green mountains and naturally, the wind started to pick up a little bit. Pou was muttering, with cruel glee, something about the plane not so much landing as dropping. Paying half attention, all I could focus on was the wobbling horizon line and clutching the seat cushion in front of me. I could not see a runway until the very last second and I swore I saw it before the pilot did. Immediately, I couldn’t give a shit how scenic the mountains were because the closer we got to the runway, the more I realized how little running room there was. The entire island itself isn’t as long as some of the runways at O’Hare. Approaching landing as a car approaches a parking spot it had almost missed, the pilot abruptly turned the plane in cartoon fashion; with screeching sounds in tow. I jumped in panic, to the delight of the people behind me, as well as Pou. The craft began to almost violently sway and, as foretold, immediately plunged toward the ground. Within seconds it dropped. Just dropped.

Culebra proved to be worth every minute of in-flight agony and the thirty minutes required to scrape my heart off the runway. Flamenco Beach was the most incredible beach I had ever seen or experienced. We rented scooters which we happily used to get around the island. We met some interesting island locals with whom we hung out till the wee hours. Pou and I enjoyed whatever rum-laced drinks the bartenders at the local dive put in front of us. It was peaceful, tranquil, serene and much-needed.

So was the ferry ride back.

Comments

Quit your job and write all the time...brutha can write...nice work.

Posted by: Jase | August 29, 2006 at 12:10 PM

Just wanna say wow, I felt like I was up there in that 'lil plane with 'ya. Glad you had some time on a beach afterward. Much joy, laughter, your friend Grace*)

Posted by: lilginks | August 29, 2006 at 04:27 PM