(July 2011) It was a silence I wasn’t used to. Actually, it wasn’t all that quiet what with the whirr of hummingbirds’ wings, the braying of burros and the cooing of doves. But what I wasn’t hearing was the sound of airplanes. For the two months I spent in Oaxaca, Mexico, last winter, the skies were virtually void of the “sounds of freedom.” It seems local general aviation activity is nonexistent in Oaxaca. A couple of times a day there are commercial flights in and out of Oaxaca, but that’s about it.
The lack of airborne activity doesn’t mean there’s not a nascent groundswell of interest by aviation aficionados. We hadn’t been in Oaxaca for more than a couple of days when Tony Raab, a neighbor who runs a vacation rental property with his wife, Rebecca (and her eight dogs, five burros and a horse), stopped by to greet us, and the talk turned quickly to airplanes and flying.
