One of the highlights of our April 2022 holiday to Brazil was a visit to the Pantanal area to spot wildlife.  We were booked to fly on Azul airlines to Campo Grande in the south central Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul, but then had to decide how to travel the remaining 300km to our safari lodge.  The lodge said it was a four hour drive, but maybe I could charter a propellor plane and land at their grass airstrip. Obviously, the latter grabbed my attention and I emailed a company recommended by the lodge; Amapil Aviation.   Unfortunately the booking process proved to be quite challenging because my emails were answered in very short emails in Portuguese.  In essence they confirmed aircraft availability and prices, and said I could pay on departure with my Amex, but then they said “contact us a month before charter date to remind us” which didn’t fill me with confidence.  As the date got closer I asked Amex Concierge services to contact Amapil and firm things up, but they said they wouldn’t because they hadn’t vetted Amapil as a supplier. Then I asked my private travel club, PK’s List to intervene and help, but they didn’t have Portuguese speakers, so they asked the hotel I was staying at immediately prior to the Pantanal visit to step in, but their phone calls to Amapil went unanswered.  Eventually, when we were already in Brazil, Mr A found a WhatsApp number for someone at Amapil and had a helpful conversation in English with a lady who promised to sort everything out for us.  And so, just a few days before we wanted to fly, we finally got everything confirmed: we would be met at Campo Grande airport and taken to the Piper Seneca I had chosen for the one hour flight to the Pantanal, and I could pay the BRL8500 (c£1200 at the time) with my Amex card before take-off.  So I was relived, but still a little apprehensive.

When we cleared immigration at Campo Grande an Amapil man was there to meet us and help with luggage, then a lady appeared who told us she was our pilot, and we were shown to a waiting car which drove us to another side of the airport, used by general aviation.  We entered a hangar full of small planes, used the toilet and paid my fees and were whisked straight out onto the apron to board our twin propellor Piper Seneca, registered PT-RSI.  I’ve no idea how old the plane was, but age is not that relevant on unpressurised planes, because their fuselage isn’t being pressurised and depressurised on every flight, which is what tends to cause metal fatigue.

For those of you who haven’t been in a small plane before, they are pretty compact – sometimes smaller than a car.  Technically the Seneca seated 4 pax in 2 rows of 2 seats facing each other. That would have been quite cramped, whereas just the two of us had adequate space to relax on beige leather seats, which really did feel like a luxury car from the 1980s.  Another thing about small planes (and helicopters) is that their aircon isn’t very good, so even after engines started up and we were taxiing for take-off, our lady pilot (who turned out to be the co-pilot) kept her door open for ventilation!

Remarkably just 30 minutes after we landed at Campo Grande we were airborne for our flight into the wilderness!  Amapil provided us with water and sweet snacks for the short flight while we relaxed and took in the views. Because the Seneca isn’t pressurised, it flies relatively low (c6,000ft), but most of the time our views were only of farmland.

But we also kept our eyes on rainclouds around us, which the pilot did his best to avoid.  And luckily, for safety, we flew below the clouds, so even when we did fly through a rain shower the plane remained very stable.

The pilots chatted amongst themselves during the flight, only turning round to tell us when we were over the Pantanal and to point out a meandering river.

Soon we were decending towards our safari lodge, and we flew around its airstrip to check it was clear of obstructions, and to confirm the wind direction from the windsock.  It was a surprisingly smooth landing on the grass strip, exactly one hour since we left Campo Grande, although we did see some deer feeding just beside the landing strip, as we have done in Africa.

We came to a stop where a vehicle was waiting to take us to the lodge.

I had originally planned to charter the plane to take us back to Campo Grande after our safari, but our late morning LATAM airlines flight out was cancelled and we had to rebook onto a GOL airlines flight leaving at 5am.  The Amapil Seneca only flies in daylight, so we couldn’t fly that early in the morning and I had to book a taxi, which left our lodge at midnight for the 300km journey, the first hour of which was on mud roads.  OK the plane cost ten times the taxi fare, but it was so much ore comfortable and enjoyable!  And despite the problems in the booking process the Amapil service was excellently smooth and efficient. 9/10

NB when flying on small planes there are restrictions on the amount of luggage one can take, but we were OK with two medium hard sided suitcases and our hand baggage.