Fortunately, Fred had flown the region many times before. He would get them through. Such were the advantages of flying the Pan American route with a former Pan American navigator.
A dirty red-brown river snaked through a mountain pass. Amelia followed it inland to a town of red roofs and black oil tanks. It was Caripito. The airport offered a long, paved runway. AE eased the Electra down.
They lunched at the hangar and stayed overnight at the home of Henry E. Linam, general manager of Standard Oil for Venezuela.
The next morning—it was June 3—mountainous rain clouds hemmed in the town. Determined to get on, Amelia plowed through them, then skirted around them back to the coast. She climbed through showers to 8,000 feet and broke into the sunlight. The gray, dank world lay below.
AE pulled out her log and scribbled her sensations of the moment: “The sun illumines mystic caves,” she scribbled on the pad, “or shows giant cloud creatures mocking with lumpy paws the tiny man-made bird among them.”
Over sea, jungle, and shore line Amelia played tag with the clouds. From well out to sea she recognized off the right wing a muddy river spilling into a wide dirty fan; together they formed the Nickerie River and delta that separated British from Dutch Guiana. She turned inland toward the coast; and rather than follow the coast in true Pan American fashion, she now cut across Jungles. A strong head wind was reducing her ground speed: she advanced the throttle to make a true air speed of 148 mph.
Another river cut across the course line. It was a curling thread of silver with green beads of islands. Amelia spread the sectional map across her knees. It should be the Surinam River, she concluded as she ran her finger along the blue line on the map. Paramaribo must be 12 miles in from its mouth; and the airport, another 25 miles farther. Alongside the river on the map a cross-hatched line indicated a railroad. Instructions from Fred were to follow it; like Casey Jones, Amelia did.
On either side of the railroad track were jungle and now and again rice fields and mud huts. From the clothes swinging from the lines behind the huts AE tried to determine the direction of the wind, but she was too busy following the course of the river to get an accurate reading. Expecting to find a small hacked-out clearing for a landing field, she was delighted to find one of the best airport facilities she had ever seen. Paramaribo had gone aviation-modern! A wind sock marked the wind direction; strips of white cloth indicated the best landing strip; smoke from a bonfire, set ablaze when her plane came into view, showed the wind velocity. How thorough are the Dutch, Amelia thought, as she began her letdown.
Amelia and Fred were hot and tired when they climbed out of the Electra. Coffee, orange juice, and sandwiches were quickly provided. Refreshed, they went to the Palace Hotel, one of Fred’s old Pan American stopping-off places.
At the hotel pilot and navigator discussed possible delays from rain and mud at the field. Amelia was eager to get on; Fred, calm and stoical.