Wintertime in South America

Monday started out hot, leaving Orlando for New York I thought it was hot in Orlando until we touched down in JFK to 98 degrees. The northeast was going through a record breaking heat wave. Lucky for me my time in New York was going to be short since I was headed south to South America, Sao Paulo Brazil to be exact where it is now winter. Cross the equator and the season flip from the northern seasons.

Heading to Sao Paulo, and saying it is winter does not mean that I will be seeing snow or anything like that, but the weather is a nice change from muggy Florida or the heat wave that the United States northeast was going through. This trip we found Sao Paulo foggy when we ended up arriving early Wednesday morning, with the temperature only getting to the mid 70’s during the day, this was a perfect temperature for walking around  Sao Paulo. Evening saw the temperature drop to the low 60’s to high 50’s which was just perfect for having dinner with friends at a outdoor restaurant. What more could you ask for, here we sat ,ate an unbelievable steak, drank and had good conversation while 3000 mile back home they were suffering in the heat.

The next benefit about wintertime in South America is the flying, the weather is usually a lot calmer, fewer thunderstorms. Yes there are still the normal thunderstorms that sit year round along the equator, yet as you get farther south it is fog that is more of a problem than the thunderstorms.

Headed  from Sao Paulo back to New York we were routed farther east than we normally go, for the most part it is almost a straight line going from Sao Paulo to New York. This night there was a weather disturbance south of Jamaica, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. So we were flight planned from Sao Paulo to Belem Brazil, which is pretty much the most eastern part of Brazil then to Barbados which is almost the farthest island east in the Caribbean, from there we followed the chain of islands up over Guadeloupe and then up to Antigua before we made the turn north and headed straight for New York.

Leaving the lights of Sao Paulo behind, it is impossible to tell where this huge city starts and ends, we headed up to Brasilia. Flying over the relatively new city of Brasilia is amazing from 36 thousand feet, the city is so well laid out with straight lines and streets and boulevards making sweeping curves in tandem, Brasilia is a very neat site to see from the air.

Next we headed up to Belem, sitting on the Atlantic coast and about 60 miles upriver from the mouth of the Amazon River you could make out the lights of the city giving a tracing affect of the Amazon River as it empties in to the Atlantic. Even though this was in the middle of the night you still got a impressive effect of how large the Amazon River is.

Following the northeastern coast of South America and leaving Brazil then French Guiana behind it was onward to Barbados, with the lights of the island and the surrounding dark Caribbean Sea it looked like a small constellation sitting in the middle of the gigantic black universe.

Approaching the island of Guadeloupe from the south, the butterfly was clearly visible, the way the island is shaped from the air it looks like a butterfly. This night again it looked spectacular in a moonless night against a dark Caribbean Sea.

Leaving the lights and island of Antigua, it was a turn north into the dark waters of the Atlantic only to be broken in a couple of hours to the sunrise over the eastern Atlantic and the start of a new day.