Nothing to declare
With no sadness whatsoever, we managed to take off from Miami just before dawn on….can´t remember what morning. But not before we´d spotted a suspect package and told someone about it, only to immediately think “oh no, we´ve just set about delaying our plans even further!”.
As the crew arrived in the departure lounge, the largely Peruvian contigent of passengers burst into a spontaneous round of applause. Now, we thought this was a sarcastic gesture, but we were to learn this was common practice in these parts.
A very peaceful flight (everyone was absolutely knackered), with a glass of wine for breakfast and proper cutlery (yes, metal objects on board folks, including a proper glass to drink from), and then our first glimpse of the continent we´ve come to visit. But would our bags be here???
As the palne toughed down there was a palapable sense of quiet amongst the passengers, and as soon as we touched down, the whole plane (except us of course) busrt into a huge round of applause, with delighted cheering from some quarters. Now, don´t get us wrong, it´s nice that the pilots got such appreciation, but honestly, we´ve landed at Manchester before and had fair worse experiences of bouncing along a run way and being beffeted by a cross wind. Perhaps these people had survived a bad experience in the past – the film “Alive” springs to mind!!
Watching the carousel go round was fascinating, as was watching it empy. We held out for an hour (just in case), but eventually decided we hadn´t got any luggage. We both had a bit of a strange smell about us by this time too, and it was clear people were trying to avoid us. But not the customs officials.
We´d been told to go to the Continental airlines desk to enquire, but this meant passing through customs which wasn´t easy. Why had these gringos got no luggage with them??
Eventually, having got past this challenge, and the hordes of very pleasant Peruvians determined that we should get in to a taxi, we found Judy in the office and waited as she scanned a book full of luggage details from right around the world. First one, then two……and then three confirmations – yes, we were in luck, the bags were here (along with our stash of Beanfeasts and other such stuff for our trekking later on), and all we had to do now was go all the way back to the carousel to see a man who´d help us. But how do we get back through security?
After various language difficulties and a certain amount of personal attention, we were shown into a room with literally hundreds of bags in there. Finding ours was easy – two Karrimor rucksacks sat next to “the spare”, and boy, were we chuffed. All intact and just waiting to be cared for. Right, let´s get on with this lark, we´re already 24 hours behind, and all for a bit of burnt toast!
Tags: Eug & Em arrive in South America
mihai