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zerega
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# Posted: 14 Mar 06 16:08 - Edited by: zerega
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The Flying Pigs of Chacaltaya
Chacaltaya, Bolivia is the world's highest ski area with one vintage ski lift that tows you up to 5470m above sea level. It is somewhat dangerous to ski, apart from the thin air: You could be hit by hogs falling from the sky.
One of the words you hear most often in Latin America is peligro or peligroso, that means dangerous and there lies a bit pride in the word when someone in La Paz tells you the road across the Andean Range into the Amazon Lowland and the Oriente was declared the Most Dangerous Road Of The World by the UN World Health Organization.
The WHO says, this road is dangerous.
It takes quite a while to get produce from the fertile lands at 500 meters above sea level across the Cordillera Real at 5500 plus meters to the capital La Paz at 4000 meters altitude. Especially fresh meat gets a bit smelly after three days on the road and this is where the Carniceros come into play.
This is where the food grows.
Carniceros they call themselves, butchers, they have a flying license and can take some of the rusting metal of the corrosion corner of the Aeropuerto International de La Paz to the meat of the Oriente in a just under two hours.
Finding something flyable from the Corrosion Corner.
This sounds simple and like a perfect business model, but for the two hours forth and two hours back a mechanic has to patch up 60 year old wiring, hydraulics, electrics and a pair of 18 cylinder Curtiss Wright R-2800-34 Double Wasp piston engines. United Airlines may use adhesive tape to mend holes in their Boeings, but here at the butchery, it is old school welding, riveting and screwing until these metal hulks are darned into airworthy condition.
After 60 years of service, this Curtiss is in for an inspection.
Let's seeeeeeeeeee ...
Especially the 18 cylinders are highly stressed. They live in an environment, where their outside basks in air at -40C, and inside they handle hot and flaming gasses. Cylinder heads respond by cracking. Other parts break off, like exhaust valves within a cylinder which are squeezed between the piston and the head. Changing a broken cylinder head above your head are tedious affairs involving stripping off the air baffles, ignition components, fuel injection lines, exhaust stacks and manifold intake pipes.
Can you just get me a new spare motor?
And a couple of thermocouple leads?
All kinds of oil, avgas and hydraulic fluids find its way out of every gap and results in getting oneself and the underlying soil soaked in dirty lube oil. The unsurfaced cargo maintenance area is a completely mess, and you walk through a potage of various petro fluids.
Ready for an invigoration with a deluge of dirty lubricants?
... or maybe an electrocution?
Once airborne, the old Commandos have to climb near their service ceiling to cross the Andean Range, which for lack of power they do at a mountain pass, cramped between much higher mountain walls. From there it is just 30 kms from arctic glaciers into the tropical rainforest. Somewhere between 6000 meters and 800 meters altitude, a runway had to be cut out of a mountain slope. Limited space meant to built it with a bend in the middle, so landing and starting airplanes had to go around a curve.
It is easy to cross the Cordillera Real ...
... with an empty cargo hold.
This is also where the infamous Coroico Road is clinged to mountain walls and earns its title of The World's Most Dangerous Road. Waterfalls may be a welcome natural car wash but make the surface so slippery, that brakes simply have no effect. Driving directions are switched from Napoleonic right to Imperial left, so the downward driver sitting on the left side of the car is able to see how many millimeters he has left of horizontal slide before it gets all vertical shoot. About 250 cars pass this road every day with an average rate of one car lost every other day. Caterpillars are on guard to topple over any remains of an accident into the great green bin.
Mr. Caterpillar, please can you clean the road of this BMW?
Above the road, Commandos try to push 5000 kgs of pig halves across the mountains. Weather changes may render the cargo weight calculation obsolete and the 5260 horsepowers aren't enough to clear the pass. Even with La Paz in sight it may be sometimes one or too pigs above the maximum landing weight. So some of the grocery has to be delivered direct without the detour via airport and market.
passing the pass
A good customer of this one-level supply-channel is Karl from Austria. Carlos manages the mountain hut next to the Chacaltaya Ski Area. The hut was built by Austrian civil engineers in the 1920ies as a base for their ski excursions. The Club Andino Boliviano even procured a used ski lift from Cortina d'Ampezzo, as in this altitude, skiers have as many difficulties to climb as 1940ies cargo haulers.
Waiting for the meat.
Karl is in the Guiness Book of Record as the highest living person on earth but this means a long way down to the local supermarket. In the Bolivian winter this is done quite simply by snowboard, at least to bring the empty bottles down. So he is quite thankful when the old WWII Commandos bomb his ski run with pigs.
Next day you will find Bavarian style roasted pork with dumplings and sauerkraut on the menu.
The airplane is faked to illustrate the pig dive-bomb but the rest, the highest ski slope of the world including some Japanese tourists at 5400 m is real. But hey, the Japanese cheated with their photography, too. They just went out with the ski gear to have their pictures taken and quickly returned to Karl's stock of Paulaner Münchner Dunkel.
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joris
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# Posted: 14 Mar 06 16:26
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great
Can I use it in the next newsletter?
Joris
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Roderick
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# Posted: 14 Mar 06 16:57
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Wow!! Great and very impressive story Zerega!! And your pictures are excellent, as usual. Thank you very much for sharing with us!!
Paulaner in the Andes... whahaha :-D
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zerega
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# Posted: 14 Mar 06 20:42
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@ Joris: Yeah, sure, it is meant to be read.
@ Roderik: "Paulaner cerveza tipo München", brewed in Chile. Bolivia has Taquiña, the world's highest brewery, of course.
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liesbeth
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# Posted: 14 Mar 06 22:01
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Thanks for this story Zerega, it's so nice to hear the story behind the pictures!
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Roderick
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# Posted: 14 Mar 06 22:48
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@ zerega: haha cool! My brother collect beer crown caps, but this one is not in our collection ;-) As a mountaineer I should have the highest crown actually... Time to go and get it :-P
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Arne
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# Posted: 14 Mar 06 23:55
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I guess the expression '..when pigs can fly' might not come very handy..;)
and that road..one car down every other day...it's a lottery driving on that mad lingering thing.
But seriously, great story, great pictures.
cheers
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Bunny
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# Posted: 15 Mar 06 20:07
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fantastic story!
thanks for it
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zerega
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# Posted: 11 Dec 06 19:19
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Google Earth updated their database in the La Paz, Bolivia area. With the new high respolution patches you can spot the few carniceros left:
- a pair of Douglas DC 4 (the four engined airplanes)
- the couple to the right is a Convair Metropolitan Curtiss and a C 46 Commando (two engines each)
- then to the right one C46 Commando and a disassembled Douglas DC 3; the fuselage is about half the size of a Commando.
- to the right, squeezed between the airport access road and the populated triangle is one more Curtiss C 64
The buildings next to the planes are the repair shops and offices of the cargo companies. Some of the pilots' and mechanics' families life here, too.
Just below the populated triangle, next to the final approach area, used to be the corrosion corner, which was cleared after 2001. It had a population of several DC4s and DC3s.
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zerega
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# Posted: 30 Nov 07 15:37
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CNN is airing a feature about Chacaltaya in early December.
"Bolivians once boasted that the Chacaltaya glacier was the world's highest ski run. But the skiers stopped coming in the late 1990s. That's because the place known by the Aymara Indians as "cold road" is melting - and fast. The glacier serves as the main source of drinking water for millions of people who live in the region. As "World's Untold Stories: Bolivia Meltdown" reveals, that tap could begin to run dry within just a few years. Glaciologist Edson Ramirez says: "It's a critical problem - it's the same problem for Peru, Ecuador and Colombia - all the Andes." Global warming is at least partly to blame says Edson: "We do know that the effects of human activities accelerate it and play the role of the catalyst in this cycle."
Bolivia Meltdown on CNN international
Sunday, 9. December, 10.00p London, Lisbon - 11.00p Madrid, Rome, Paris, Berlin - midnight in Istanbul
La tierra tiene fiebre necesita medicina y pokito de amó que le cure la penita que tiene.
Bebe - Ska de la tierra
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drora
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# Posted: 30 Nov 07 18:15
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Thanks for the story Zerega :)
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Chriss
Member
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# Posted: 30 Nov 07 22:55
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Thanks... very interesting Zerega
Yunkyards are very exciting. I check it an found other parts with old airplanes there.
For airplane enthusiasts
http://www.airliners.net/search/photo.search?countrysearch=Bolivia&dis tinct_entry=true
Here you find many other pictures of those airlains not as beautifully as those of Zerega but very interesting.
One question Zerega as you got entrance ? normally such places are guarded or locked !!!
regreds
chriss
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zerega
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# Posted: 7 Dec 07 15:54 - Edited by: zerega
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Chriss,
that was before 9/11 and in Bolivia. You could have bought a couple of dynamite sticks
at the miners's market in Potosí and walk throught the gate at nearby Sucre airport without
being bothered. Fortunately blowing up people in airplanes isn't a thing that is stored in
any Bolivian mindset.
For the cargo area at La Paz you had to visit the Jefe de Seguridad, a very cheerful chap
quite happy to entertain visitors from abroad, especially since there aren't any issues de
seguridad at La Paz International Airport he could have taken care of.
He gave me a number from one of the companies. I called, 15 minutes later I met the manager
in the check-in hall, who took me through the gate of the cargo area, gave me a quick tour
and allowed me to roam around freely at all areas.
Some mechanics asked for a helping hand, some introduced me to their families living
on the premises amidst drying laundry hung between cargo offices and spare part storage.
One company employed me to stock up their Coca Cola inventory from the drink vendor
at the far side of the runway. This job involved passing a dozen 2 liter bottles containing
brown liquid through a hole in the airport perimeter fence. I wonder how that looked like
to the guys in the tower. But obviously this was a standard procedure procuring catering items.
Sounds like paradise when modern airport hassle comes to mind.
Suburban home with the family propliner.
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zerega
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# Posted: 9 Dec 07 17:12 - Edited by: zerega
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...
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Chriss
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# Posted: 31 Dec 07 19:51 - Edited by: Chriss
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Bolivia Meltdown on CNN international
for those that missed this report.
http://search.cnn.com/search?query=Bolivia+Meltdown&type=video&sortBy= date&intl=false
regreds
chriss
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zerega
Member
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# Posted: 3 Jan 08 14:15
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Chriss, thanks for the link!
Good thing they posted it as video-on-demand.
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Guilhem
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# Posted: 9 Feb 08 23:18 - Edited by: Guilhem
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Thanks Zerega for this very interesting topic!
Regard,
Guilhem
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