About halfway through her flight in Africa, Amelia Earhart stopped in the town of D’Jamena.  D’Jamena is the capital of Chad.  It is a port town, but on the river and not the ocean.  In the late 1930’s the population was under 10,000 people.  Today the population stands at over a half million people.  War comes to D’Jamena pretty often.  Most recently it was invaded by rebels on February 2, 2008.

Reaching Africa was a big part of Amelia Earhart’s trip.  On June 9, 1937 Earhart flew the short distance from St. Louis to Dakar.  That city may sound familiar to some car racing fans out there.  The Dakar Rally is a desert car race that usually ends in Dakar.  It used to go from Paris, France to Dakar.  Well, Amelia Earhart used a plane and pretty much started in Dakar.  Her route was Dakar, Gao, N’Djamena, Fasher, Khartoum, Massawa, and finally Assab.  Let’s take a short look at those cities.

Amelia Earhart flew over a big stretch of water when she left South America for Africa.  She was the first woman to make the eastward flight over the South Atlantic.  She landed in St. Louis.  No, not the one in Missouri, the one in Senegal.  Senegal is in Africa and St. Louis was a part of French West Africa.  St. Louis was the headquarters of Air France.  Earhart actually decided during her flight to go there.  She didn’t like the look of the route to the south, so she just headed a bit left and landed in St. Louis instead of Dakar.

Amelia Earhart now entered the South American part of her journey. This part would also see her cross the Equator. She made 4 stops in South America: Caripito, Paramaribo, Fortaleza, and Natal. The last two cities are in Brazil, while the first is in Venezuela, and the second was in Dutch Guiana. Dutch Guiana is now known as Suriname. Paramaribo is the capital of Suriname and most of the country’s population lives there. It is well known for its diverse population. Just like Paramaribo, all three other South American cities sit on the the coast. Natal, in Brazil, is called the City of the Sun. Natal is not a big city, but is becoming a major tourist area and is said to be the safest capital city in Brazil. Fortaleza, also in Brazil, mimics its neighbor with safety and tourism. Fortaleza is a major beach city. Caripito is in Venezuela. There is a lot of oil activity in this city.

On June 1, 1937, Amelia Earhart landed in San Juan.  San Juan is the capital of Puerto Rico.  Ponce de Leon was the first governor of Puerto Rico, named so after he founded the first settlement there in 1508.  That settlement was called Caparra.  Hmm, you are thinking about Ponce de Leon.  Why does he sound familiar?  Remember the legend that Ponce de Leon searched Florida for the Fountain of Youth?  It’s the same guy!  The Spanish Empire used San Juan as a port and stop before continuing on to the New World.  In 1898 the Treaty of Paris had Spain give Puerto Rico to the United States.  What is San Juan like today?  Read more!

Miami, Florida is where Amelia Earhart left the United States on June 1, 1937.  Once again her airplane needed some maintenance before taking off.  The plane was having problems with the auto-pilot and with the radio transmitter.  They fixed the auto-pilot and got rid of a long antennae causing the transmitter problems.  At 5:55 a.m. Earhart and Noonan took off from Miami and the United States.  Let’s take a short look at Miami.

On her journey around the world, Amelia Earhart made a stop in Tucson, AZ.  The heat in Arizona was too mush for one of her engines.  However, all it needed was a good cleaning.  Let’s take a look at Tucson.

Earhart started in Oakland, CA.  This is where she started the first attempt too.  However, this time she would be flying in the opposite direction.  Let’s talk about Oakland.

I want to spend some time talking about Earhart’s route.  I’ll talk a bit about the places she flew to.  How are they different from one another and what may be different about the location today.  Of course I’ll also talk about the food.  Come on, you knew I would.  Before I get on to that you need to check out this map from Purdue University’s Amelia Earhart collection.  This map shows her route.  It is incredible.  A great resource.  Scroll at the bottom to see the whole map.  You can also click on the city names to find out more and see pictures of Earhart from that city.  Seriously, “awesome” is the word that comes to mind.  Here is the link.