Airport complications. This is the nightmare of any traveler especially an uninformed and inexperienced one such as myself. It was one week before my scheduled departure out of Cusco when a lovely little disease now known as the swine flu broke out in Mexico. Genuinely fearing for my heath I followed along as best as I could -Spanish language television wasn't ideal at a time like this- for many days to the latest updates on this situation. As well as constantly checking the status of my flights. Yes flights, not being made of money I bought the cheapest round trip ticket I could find however this meant sacrifices. Those sacrifices came in the form of multiple painfully long layovers. One of which just so happened to land in Mexico City. Up until this point every flight and layover was still planned to leave on schedule. Which did indeed mean spending 7 hours and 15 minutes waiting in the Mexico City airport. Imagining being surrounded by hundreds of coughing germ ridden potentially infected travelers made my skin crawl. So when the URL at the top of the computer screen changed to reveal my newly cancelled flight a clean breath of relief escaped my uninfected lungs. Which of course was followed by the thought "how the heck am I going to get home". As it turned out my only viable options were to either attempt to phone the airline or fly to Lima as originally planned and sort it out in person at the airport there. My travel buddy Kristin and I decided to wing it and so we got on that plane to Lima. Little did we know our unlucky streak had boarded the plane with us. Once we stepped out of the quiet and seemingly safe area of baggage retrieval into the frenetic main floor of Aeropuerto Internacional Jorge Chavez the next few hours were a cataclysmic blur of events to which a timeline could not be deciphered. Somehow we must have known the torture we were in for because we had managed to get a hold of a baggage buggy instead of manually toting around our backpacks as we usually did. Our time in the airport was dedicated to figuring out a new route home. Several trips were made up and down the elevator – where I would accidentally ram the baggage buggy into the doors… every time. Those doors move slower than you expect them too- in search of different floors and different offices then towards the phone booths to make a series of useless calls except the ones home of course. Kristin eventually decided that we were going to follow these two guys that were employed by the airline to a travel agency a couple of blocks over. I had run into one of these fellows earlier but being cautious of solicitors who stand at the entrances of airports I chose to make other attempts before leaving the airport with someone I didn't know. However every one of my efforts failed and frustration had built to an uncharacteristically high level. So once again we chose to wing it.
The sun had long since set though the smell of salt and ocean stayed to remind us that despite the fact the ocean was not visible from where we stood it was still within reach. The air held a mysterious humidity one moment warm and soothing and the next it would force me to break out in chills. I supposed I noticed this more than anything else because in a way it mirrored perfectly how I was feeling at the time. Calm would give way to panic only to turn back into comfort which spent the rest of the night battling it out with secretly terrified. On the outside however I stayed as composed as one could under such circumstances. So as Kristin and I walked with the two strangers whom we soon learned went by the names of Hector and Jose we began to explain our problem in a messy combination of languages most affectionately known as Spanglish. Only later to retell this story at the travel agency and once again to a man named Carlos a friend of Jose and Hectors who was recruited to help because it turns out he is a well connected man and was also teaching English nearby. His English did have its flaws and I admit I took much amusement out of the fact that he would frequently use the wrong gender pronouns. Nonetheless he turned out to be a real blessing, scoring us a flight out of Lima for the next night to LA and then to home. Our next task was inevitably to find a hostel, though Carlos deemed the first one our taxi stopped at unsuitable. When he politely informed us a well-known prostitute in the area ran it and she sometimes worked from home we instantly ruled it out too. We eventually did manage to find ourselves a nice hostel and as late evening transformed itself into early morning the only thing left to do was to join our three new friends for some local cerveza and karaoke followed by dancing at one of the cities many discotheques.
This journey ends only 24 hours after it began with me standing in line at the Edmonton Airport Customs watching a girl suspected of having the swine flu get pulled off to the side and medically examined. I can’t help wondering if they quarantined her.
Fun Fact: Also standing in front of me in the customs line was I swear David Carradine (I am a solid 98% sure). After being momentarily amused by the swine flu girl I tried to eaves drop on this mans conversation with the customs officer to see if his name would be brought up thus validating my suspicion. I am not sure if he caught me doing this or not my memory is a little fuzzy on the matter. However I so badly wanted to say: “excuse me you look awfully familiar.” yet my feet remained glued to the floor for the following reasons:
1. I wasn’t going to be that person. You know the kind who get all crazy over celebrities and don’t know the meanings of “subtlety”, and “playing it cool.”
2. I am notorious for thinking that people look like and are celebrities even if they aren’t. (I grew up thinking my hair dresser was one of the Dixie chicks) Basically I didn’t want to embarrass myself.
3. I didn’t want to pretend to be a fan of someone whose only work I had seen was a cameo on a Disney channel show from my elementary school days.
4. You don’t mess with airport officials.
Unfortunately this is my favorite part of the story although the least believable part as well. It turns out he did show up in Edmonton at Prohibition two nights later to play bocce. Now that is a cameo I can respect.
