WE MADE THE FLIGHT - BUT JUST BARELY
By Bob Van Leer

  (MANAUS, BRAZIL, OCT 11, 1990) - It is 2:30 a.m. and the temperature in our room at the Hotel Amazonas must be about 100 degrees even with the air conditioner on.

  From our ninth floor balcony we can see ocean going ships at the harbor just a block away.

  Manaus is nearly a thousand miles from the Atlantic Ocean but the elevation is only 60 feet and the Amazon is the biggest river in the world so this is an ocean port. Manaus, a city of over a million population, is the major city of the Amazon River. A garbage truck rolled by on the street with three boys aged about 10-12 years old working on the back.

  Betty and I drove to Medford Oct. 9 to start on the annual foreign study mission sponsored by the National Newspaper Association. We caught a 5:45 a.m. flight to Portland. That part of the trip went well. After that, it started to slip and the result was we made our flight to Manaus with only minutes to spare.

  Otherwise, we would be spending our time tomorrow chasing around South America trying to rejoin our party rather than being here in our hotel on the Amazon as planned.

  At Portland, our flight to Chicago was held up because of landing problems at O'Hare in Chicago. We arrived at Chicago late and there were held up still further on our leg to Miami. Our connection at Miami was to the Brazilian airline, Varig. Our schedule allowed about two hours time to transfer baggage and check in for the Brazil flight. This should be enough time.

Late at Miami

  However, our landing at Miami was more than an hour late which allowed us only about 45 minutes to make the connection. For practical purposes this Is not possible but it was all we had so we tried it. We did make the flight but in spite of a comedy of errors and because of a kindly Brazilian. Betty engaged a skycap to wait for the baggage and join me at the Varig check in counter. I went to do the check in.

  I was patiently waiting in what I thought was the right line and chatting with a friendly Brazilian bound for another destination. He disappeared and came back and told me our flight was closing. He said to push my way through past this line of about 50 people and check in.

  I followed his advice, in spite of some comments from others in the line that were probably obscene if I could have understood them. The agent processed our tickets and wanted to know here the baggage was. She said the flight leaves in 15 minutes. I assured her Betty would be here momentarily with the baggage and raced back down the escalator to see if we had baggage yet.

  There was no one in the huge Miami baggage area, especially not Betty and the skycap. Meanwhile, Betty and the Skycap, with our baggage, came up an elevator to the Varig terminal and couldn't find me.

Where is Betty?

  Betty had the good sense to stay put and I raced back up the escalator again. Finally we made connection and, again, I bulled my way to the head of the line to the baggage check in and shoved our baggage through to get checked in. I was not comfortable doing things this way but the friendly Brazilian assured me this was the way it was done.

  Now we have our boarding passes and the baggage is checked and may get on the flight. But we still have to get ourselves aboard. We raced for the gate. It is now about 10 minutes before flight time. This is a once a week flight and it is not like we can catch another one in an hour. I wanted to go one way but Betty said up the escalator is the right way. She was right but it did not seem so at first. Up the escalator the doors led outside. However, there were some elevator-like doors along the side and it turned out that these were to a train that went to our gate.

  By now we were down to 5 minutes before flight time. We caught the train and, at the terminus, raced again to our gate just in time to catch the end of the line of the last passengers boarding.

  Joanne Buckley, NNA staff member, who has the job of being mother hen for these trips, was waiting, not very patiently, for us to show up. All of the other 17 members of the trip were already aboard. We had made it. The trip from there to Manaus, a five hour flight, was uneventful. On the plane we visited with the other members of our party, many of whom we have traveled with before.

  The service and food on Varig is superior to most U.S. airlines we have traveled on. At 1 a.m. we arrived in Manaus. This city is only 200 miles south of the equator and it shows. The atmosphere is stifling. We were transported to the hotel and can sleep in until 11. Later today we will tour a cattle ranch and head out to a Smithsonian Institution camp in the jungle to spend the night.