at thirty thousand feet and all is calm. A propeller-driven plane, in contrast, has no choice but to fly through the bad weather at five thousand or seven thousand feet in order to stay below the freezing level and escape the deadly potential of ice.
Nevertheless, I decided to fly. Predictably, within minutes of takeoff I flew into turbulence and zero visibility and immediately regretted my decision. I was tired from the accumulation of hours flown over the previous two days and I toyed with asking Lisbon for permission to return, but that would have required explanations and a full instrument approach; it seemed easier just to maintain course. Two hours later, jolted and buffeted, nerves weary with strain, the plane sluggish under a full load of fuel, I burst without warning into clear skies over the expansive blue of the Mediterranean Sea.
Small-plane flying with its lurking potential for danger is addictive. An irresistible urge draws pilots back into the cockpit again and again to experience the sweet thrill of speed. The power at one’s fingertips is physically pleasing, sensual, and never more so than when a plane explodes from dense cloud into clear blue sky. The close confinement of the cockpit bursts open into the blue to describe parabolic arcs of bank, loops, and spins, defying the laws of gravity and balance. The dream of unrestricted flight—the early flyers, daredevils swooping under bridges, barnstorming stunt flyers and World War II ace fighter pilots understood it, flying their unsafe machines with giddy recklessness. The seduction lies in the freedom of the sky, where only a hint of hubris can reduce a pilot to mortality.
The Spanish controller suddenly interrupted my thoughts with an instruction to change frequency and register with Algerian control. I was leaving Spanish airspace. I tried contacting the Algerians repeatedly. No joy. I was probably too low in altitude and therefore unable to make radio contact, so I continued flying, on course, out of communication with both the Spanish and the Algerian controllers.
Ten minutes later I attempted contact again and this time the Algerian controller responded. My first contact with Africa sounded unfriendly, demanding my flight-clearance number, authorizing me to fly over Algerian airspace. I did not have one. He asked if I was aware of my current position, and told me to evacuate Algerian airspace immediately or be shot down.
I made a quick calculation. To avoid Algerian airspace would mean flying an additional four hundred miles north and east around Algeria to Malta. A diversion of this magnitude would add another two and half hours to my flight. I thought of appealing; however, the controller sounded uncompromising. I quickly dismissed a fleeting temptation to fly low, hoping to avoid radar detection. The thought of being shot down or interrogated in an Algerian prison argued in favour of diversion.
The flight around Algeria’s northern airspace seemed endless. The border extended beyond Africa’s most northern peninsula, almost to the Italian island of Pantelleria in the Sicilian Channel. I rankled at the controller’s mindless adherence to nationalistic and bureaucratic regulations, but at least I was favoured with a sixtyknot tailwind off the starboard quarter.
Late afternoon gradually slipped into an apricot-coloured sunset that took fire. The Mediterranean lay mirrored below, awash in orange and pink ribbons of light. The faint, recumbent outline of Malta emerged on the horizon, its western end bathed in gold from the setting sun. I entered a left-hand downwind visual approach for Luka Airport, touching down as nightfall blanketed the island in darkness.
I had one more flight to reach Africa. The next morning I clambered into the cockpit and set about the familiar routines for the twelve-hour flight to Luxor, Egypt. The sun rose rapidly over the table-flat horizon of the Mediterranean as I started the long slow climb to ten thousand feet. A slight headwind added an hour to my estimated time of arrival in Luxor. I had fuel for over seventeen hours of flying time, easily enough for this leg of the flight. Dependent on winds, travelling at approximately 120 knots, I could fly nearly three thousand miles without stopping.
I was now more than halfway to Nairobi from Toronto; the navigation and flying had become routine. Although exhausted by three consecutive long-distance flights, I was increasingly familiar with the workings of the cockpit and excited by the slow countdown of the instruments, drawing me closer and closer to the African continent.
Gazing through the pilot’s-side window I sighted an old freighter bucking a stiff sea, ten thousand feet below on a southwesterly heading—probably making for Alexandria. My thoughts drifted into every pilot’s nightmare: what to do in the event of an engine failure over water. Procedures unfold according to a prescribed order: reconfigure the flight controls; trim the plane for a glide; circle the freighter several times; lose altitude while not losing sight of the chance for rescue; cross the freighter’s bow fifty feet above the water; contact control by radio and transmit my latitude and longitude; prepare to ditch into the sea—one has to get it right.
Suddenly, the controller’s voice from far off sifted into my consciousness, momentarily confusing me. He repeated instructions to switch over to Cairo control. I was approaching the coast of Africa, entering Egyptian airspace. The hours had slipped by unnoticed and the freighter, my one chance of rescue in the event of a crash, was plunging through mountainous seas now four hundred miles behind me.
A reddish haze lay indistinct, barely discernible below. I was flying over Africa at last. The ancient city of Alexandria emerged through the liquid haze of noon. The languid, flowing Nile meandered through its enormous delta, disgorging silt and history into the Mediterranean.
I flew due south over the undulating desert to the sprawl of Cairo which sat like an enormous blister enveloping the smoky haze of the slums, industrial plants, warehouses, and railways. The green Nile twisted like a serpent over the sand to the desert city of Luxor where I needed to refuel.
Luxor sat, desiccated by the sun, enveloped in the stink of dust. I shut down the engine and heard the muezzin’s wailing call to prayer. In the town the chaotic clatter of buses belched diesel fumes into the air, mixed with the smells of urine and rotting garbage. Men in white flowing djellabas gathered in the cool doorways, women in black bui-buis scuttled like crows through the narrow streets; electrical wires and lines of laundry looped overhead; donkeys, carts, and street urchins pushed between the sweet-smelling spices, ochre, green, and blood-red mounds piled in woven baskets; vendors cried out for buyers, voices ululating over the din; the daily commerce of the Nile remained timeless and unchanging.
I walked along the riverbank. Flotillas of “bateaux-mouche,” garishly lit, poorly maintained, lay moored alongside the quay, muscling aside the elegant Nile feluccas, older than history. Luxor, it seemed, had embraced the shoddy commerce of mass tourism. Only in the back alleys, beyond the street vendors and the neon-lit food stalls, into the Moslem quarter, where the dilapidated multi-storeyed buildings pressed against the narrow streets, did one discover the human cry of that impoverished city.
I crossed to the west side of the Nile: the Valley of the Kings and the smaller Valley of the Queens, where the hills shimmered in the translucent heat of the desert, magnificently still. There, the dead haunt the living. Only time bore witness to the passage of civilizations: the Phoenicians, the Syrians, the Greeks, the Romans under Caesar, the Turks, the Mamelukes, the French under Napoleon, the English under Kitchener; they all came and fell under the spell of this royal burial ground.
On the east side of the Nile stood the temples of Luxor, ancient city of Thebes: Karnak, Dendora, and Kom Ombo. Enormous blocks of pink granite, exquisite, massive in stature and grace, towered above the tourists, guides, and beggars. Statues of Hatshepsut and Ramses gaze across the river; seamless links to the past. Ancient Egypt remains eternal.
And yet, even more impressive is the
