Travelogue: Day 2 - Santa Cruz, Bolivia to Bogota, Colombia

After a day of enjoying Bolivian hospitality, it is time to move on. Our journey today takes us to El Dorado International Airport in Bogota, Colombia. As you shall soon discover, this flight will capture many of the essential essences of South America all at once: plains, rainforests, and even high mountains. We are definitely in for a treat!

Fortunately, the weather in Santa Cruz starts out much more promising than in Sao Paolo yesterday. We hop in the 747, bid farewell to our defunct LAB Airlines buddies, and taxi to Runway 34:



Almost effortlessly, we are airborne. The Bolivian lowlands are mostly unremarkable, looking much as they did on our final approach into Viru Viru yesterday. Soon we turn northwest and head over the Amazon rainforest in western Brazil, eastern Peru, and southern Colombia. Here we see one of the many branches of the Amazon as we fly over Brazil:



As we near Bogota, the scenery once again dramatically changes. Here is a beautiful shot of the Bogota River valley, with one of the Andes mountain ranges in the background:



I have a confession to make at this point: due to poor understanding of the relatively complex approach procedures into El Dorado, I screwed up and had the plane pointed in the complete opposite direction of the airport! Oops! The idea is to fly over the eastern flank of mountains, turn left, and quickly line up for El Dorado.

So to make a long story short, I had to do a big 180 degree arc while avoiding smacking into the tops of the mountains near Bogota. Ah well, so we took the scenic route! Next time I'll know better. At last, I managed to salvage the approach and get properly lined up for the ILS on Runway 13R:



And you can see here why El Dorado has just become one of my new favorite airports. It sits on a mesa above the surrounding landscape. Land too short, and you will crash into the side of the mesa. Oh, and the field sits at 8300' msl, so you will be coming in a bit faster than at sea level. Gotta love these hot 'n high airports, eh? Thankfully, El Dorado was built with rather long runways, so we will have no trouble stopping before the end.

Here is a closer view of the final approach:



We set down without incident, and turn onto the taxiway toward our designated parking spot:



As we taxi, notice the beautiful Andes mountains in the background:



After years of internal strife, the Colombian government has been making inroads with regard to getting the internal security situation of the country under control. Travel on roads within Colombia is still considered to be a dangerous prospect, but Bogota itself is regarded as relatively safe to visit. If these screenshots are representative of the real thing, I would love to add Bogota to my itinerary someday. Looks like a very pretty place!

Total flight time: 3:09

Enjoy!