Top Secret CIA Documents
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Departure Airport: Minneapolis/Saint Paul International Airport (MSP/KMSP)
Arrival Airport: Benito Juárez International Airport (MEX/MMMX)
Airline: Delta Air Lines
Aircraft: Airbus A319
Flight Time: 3 hours, 22 minutes
Cruising Altitude: FL360
Server: Expert
Delta operates a once daily Minneapolis - Mexico City service year round with their Airbus A319s. I decided to recreate it in Infinite Flight, since it seemed like a fun route to do.
Heading out onto Runway 17 for departure right over “Bdote,” the Dakota (indigenous tribe native to this part of Minnesota) word for the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers, a sacred places in their culture.
Despite our full cabin, we took off relatively quickly and banked southeast over Bloomington’s suburban sprawl, with Wakpá Mnísota (the Minnesota River) in the background.
Comfortably up at FL360, crossing the Minnesota - Iowa border. Fun fact: Iowa is known in the Dakota language as “Aiouez,” which means “something to write or paint with.” According to the University of Iowa, the indigenous people created a powerful ink from corn husks to paint onto buffalo hides and cloth.
Hello, Kansas City International Airport (@BenjiTheBull summon). The Hopewell tribe that inhabited this area for thousands of years prior to it’s settlement during the Western Expansion movement are known for making intricate sculptures and even multi level structures out of nothing but river mud collected from the banks of the Mississippi.
A bit farther south and we come upon the Dallas/Fort Worth urban area. The Tahwaccaro tribe native to this part of Texas were noted for using their vast knowledge of the terrain to aid enslaved Africans in their escape, often under the veil of nightfall
Texas isn’t just scrubland and farms after all! We caught our first glimpse of ocean water with about 90 minutes left in the flight. The Karankawa people, who lived on Texas’s Gulf Coast mastered the skill of smoke signals to communicate with other tribal members across vast distances. It was so developed, in fact, that different hunting teams could relay very specific information as to the location of a potential victim using just dried reeds lit on fire.
¡Hola desde las montañas de México! Nearing Mexico City, we pass over the land of the Aztecs. The Aztec people built Mexico City as Tenochtitlan around 1325. It was a thriving metropolis built on an island in Lake Texcoco housing over 140,000 people, a royal palace, a sophisticated water and sewage system, and a marketplace with thousands of vendors from across Central America. The Spanish brutally seized Tenochitilan, drained the lake, and built Mexico City as we know it today.
The Aztecs inhabited a vast swath of Northern/Eastern Mexico. They were expert mountaineers, and easily able to traverse the hot, rocky terrain. Aztec doctors would often spend days deep in the mountains, far out of contact of any other humans to gather hundreds of different medicinal herbs and plants. A study by the University of Minnesota found that many of the medicinal herbs actually do have a health benefit. For example, Epazotl (a small desert herb) has a powerful effect on asthma attacks, with similar results to an inhaler.
On short final for Runway 23L in a very windy Mexico City.
After a rather firm landing, we pulled onto the stand to let the passengers disembark, before the same crew flew right back to Minneapolis later in the afternoon.
