There was a thick layer of low cloud hanging over the airport and
vicinity when we arrived. The airport officials were anxious not to make any booboos with
the President's arrival. Apart from telling us to move our plane before 8 a.m., they
kept running about like headless chickens and we had to wait until the President had
arrived and left the airport before the airport comandante would stamp and sign our flight
plan. To add insult to injury, the captain of the President's jet hadn't even used
the space that we had vacated and plonked his Learjet right next to ours! And if
that weren't enough, the flight plan with all its rubber stamps and signatures - as far as
the airport was concerned - only served as permission for us to depart. The reported
ceiling was 1000 feet, but a hill at 8400 feet elevation immediately north of the airport
(600 feet above airport ) was in the clouds. May be they cheated with the weather
report so that the President's jet could legally make the approach as the MDA for the
VOR/DME runway 11 is 8740 feet, 1000 feet above the airport elevation.
Fortunately there is an instrument departure or we would have had
to wait several hours for the clouds to lift. On the other hand, until we could make
radio contact with the controllers, no one except the comandante of the airport would be
aware of our proposed flight. Flemming requested a clearance from the local AFIS
frequency, but was told to just depart, file the flight plan in the air by radio and
request clearance from nearby Tuxtla approach. After we had lined up for takeoff on
runway 11, there was some incoming traffic announced in Spanish on the local AFIS
frequency and due to arrive just 4 minutes after our departure, so we departed into the
overcast skies with embedded mountains after we were told that the incoming traffic was
established on final for runway 11at San Cristóbal - the opposite side of our departure
procedure. Very poor or rather non-existing coordation by the AFIS controller. Scary,
scary...
I overheard the pilot of the other plane inform San Cristóbal
tower in Spanish that he was in clear skies at 12,000 feet, so at least that was
encouraging! We were reasonably light by this time, not having refuelled since
Toluca, so it wasn't long before we had climbed the some 2,700 feet above the runway
elevation to break out of the clouds at 10,500 feet. Only then were we able to establish
radio contact with Tuxtla approach, file the flight plan and get our IFR clearance.
Our original plan was to fly to Palenque (the Mayan city in the
jungle), some 40 minutes away. But in view of the weather and the fact that Palenque
doesn't have an instrument approach or departure procedure, we had decided to file IFR for
Chichén Itzá instead. As it happened, there were some holes in the clouds near
Palenque as we flew past it at 13,000 feet, but there was no guarantee of a safe VFR
arrival and we were not sure whether a visual departure would be possible the
following morning,, we still pushed on to Chichén Itzá. We landed at the
brand new Chichén Itzá airport after a total flight time of 2 hours 41 minutes.
Chichén Itzá was hot after the cool mountain air of San
Cristóbal. I lounged around the hotel swimming pool after lunch while Flemming did
some work on the computer. We purposely waited until later in the afternoon to visit
the Mayan ruins - to avoid the worst of the heat as well as the hordes of tourists
that invade the place every day from nearby Cancún.
Hiring a guide is not exactly cheap - about US$ 40 for 2 hours -
but it is well worth it as it saves having to look up everything in the guide book as one
walks around. What's more, they know how to sift out the major points of interest.
Our guide, Gabriel, also pointed out an iguana, neatly camouflaged against its
background. It was motionless, no doubt thinking that it was invisible to our eyes.
Then I saw some colourful birds with blue bellies and unusual tails with twin
prongs connecting the body to the tail feathers. Gabriel said they are called clock birds
since the tail resembles a pendulum. There are several species of birds at the site and
apparently some people visit it solely to bird watch!
We returned to the site in the evening for the light and sound
show. A thunderstorm timed itself just right to enhance the lighting effects and
there was a dramatic crash of thunder for the finale! Fortunately, the worst of the
storm was a few kilometres away and we only got a few drops of rain.
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In front of El Castillo pyramid
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