The travel gods have decided that my trip is not quite over. I´m chuckling at the fact that I wrote a dramatic final farewell post yesterday and now here I am, still in Lima. I wasn´t laughing last night, though. I waited in an ENORMOUS line for over 2 hours to check-in...the rumor was that LAN airlines computer system was down...only to find out at the counter that they didn´t have a seat for me on the flight that I paid for ages ago.
By this point it was nearly midnight and I was exhausted. My feet were killing me from standing in line and lugging a big hiking backpack around and now they were telling me that I had to stand in yet ANOTHER line so that they could book me a hotel, rebook a flight and give me some form of compensation. The best* part is that the only flights available were for the following day (today) also at midnight. Whoopti'freaking do. 24 more hours at the Lima airport.
I stood in the second line for another hour just to make it to the counter for someone to help me, and another hour while they booked everything. It might not have taken them quite so long to do the booking if it weren´t for person after person stepping in front of me at the counter to ask the girl who was helping me a million questions that they felt were more important than her booking a hotel room for a really cranky, tearful pregnant lady. Somehow they thought that by saying, "Disculpa, Señorita" that I wouldn´t have thoughts of kicking their #$$.
I´m not sure if it was the shock of it all, the exhaustion or the disappointment that persuaded me to tears. Probably all of the above. And the fact that I didn´t know where they were going to have me stay for the night and the last thing I wanted to do was hop in a cab at nearly 2 am. The area around the airport in Lima ain´t pretty. Thank goodness they just booked me into the hotel across the street from the airport. I stayed there my first night here, so as you can see, all has come full circle. I´m sitting in the business center of the Costa del Sol Ramada Hotel at the Lima airport writing in my blog.
I put my pregnant belly to work for me last night when I arrived at the hotel and got in ANOTHER line to check in. The guy at the desk noticed that I was pregnant and had dark circles growing under my red, puffy eyes, so I got to cut in front of a long line of dudes. Thanks, Max. We Americans have a real reputation for not speaking a lick of Spanish because the front desk guy remembered me from my last visit and said, "Oh, you´re the Spanish speaking American!"
In other news, I was up all night having dreams about fish. I couldn´t sleep because I managed to dump a family of talking fish down the drain in my dream and I had to figure out how to get them out so that they didn´t end up in the sewer and die. It was almost as traumatic as being denied my flight home*.
I´m trying to be positive today and look on the bright side. Truth be told, it was much better to sleep in a bed than it would have been to get neck cramps on a crowded overnight flight, where I would have most likely have been seated in a middle seat. At least I know I will get an aisle seat on tonight´s flight (yup, pulled the pregnancy card for that one as well).
I´m measuring the progress of my day by the meal vouchers the airlines gave me for the hotel restaurant. 2 meals down, one to go. I´ve already been to the hotel spa to get an inexpensive facial. I would have paid a little more if it meant that the spa could buy a new cassette player (yup, remember those?)...because the poor woman doing my facial was so embarassed by the fact that her nature sounds cassette with birds and ocean sounds kept jamming that she finally gave up and put in a Whitney Houston tape. So I got a facial to the relaxing* sounds of "I´m Every Woman" and "I Wanna Dance With Somebody".
Is it normal that I want to high five every pregnant woman I see? There was one in Ollanta and I was practically stalking the woman. I eavesdropped on a conversation she was having in a cafe one day and learned that she was one month ahead of me in her pregnancy and it made me feel even better about my decision to take the trip...because if she could do it, so could I! ...and then just now while having lunch, I saw another pregnant traveler and I had an overwhelming urge to approach her and give her a high-five. Don´t worry. I didn´t. With Phil´s baggy shirt on, I´m not sure she would have even known that I was pregnant too.
Ok, I´m ready to be home. As much as the Lima airport is the center of all things arts-and-culture related in Peru*, I´m starting to get bored, and I fear that all those folks crazy enough to still read my blog are the ones suffering from my boredom the most.
* sarcasm
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