Mazamari

Mazamari is located in a mountainous region of Peru, about 200 miles south of Pucallpa. While the scenery if beautiful to look at with many waterfalls and mile after mile of virgin jungle, the terrain can create challenges as clouds can obscure mountain peaks and haze limits visibility to 3-4 miles. One of the tools we use to avoid the cumulous granite is topographical information that is displayed on our GPS units. This is backed up with charts that have predetermined routes with known altitudes for crossing passes and entering valleys.

The day we returned to Pucallpa, the haze was thick and I had to fly half of the flight solely with reference to the flight instruments. Thankfully I had just finished some Instrument training when I was in the USA over the summer so the skills were fresh in my mind. By the way, the color GPS is so easy to use even a pilot can figure it out. The red shows terrain that is above your present altitude and the yellow is anything with in a 1000 feet below you. Dont fly in the RED and be very careful in the YELLOW.