In The Airport

Journal Entry
18 March 2008
Cafe in the Lima Airport, Peru

I came to the airport this morning at 4am to find out that Jon´s flight from Miami had been delayed.

"When will it arrive?" I asked.

"We do not know."

"Why is it delayed?"

"It is cancelled."

"Why was it cancelled?"

"We do not know."

Now that I had that cleared up, I went to keep Sarah company while she waited for her 7am flight to the jungle. At least we´d been able to split the cab fare on this pre-dawn excursion. But I was in limbo. Is he arriving in 2 hours or 20? Do I stay and find a comfy corner somewhere and read my book, or do I go all the way back to Miraflores?

I bought another coffee.

I finally got in touch with Jon who was awaiting his not super Super-Shuttle from the airport hotel. His best estimate was that he´d arrive somewhere around 4pm. "It´s hard to say, sweetie, because technically my flight doesn´t exist." Always a good sign.

Now that I knew I had about 12 hours to wait, it was ridiculous to consider staying in the airport that long, but this meant I had to make the long and chaotic journey back to my quiet, tree-lined little neighborhood in Lima, and I could not afford the taxi. But the direct public transport wouldn´t be available until 10am. I finally decided I would take a combo of combis (small manic mini vans packed full of hurried Limeños on their way to work) and hope for the best.

As I got various sets of instructions from various men all around the airport, I was crossing the parking lot when approached by a "taxi economico" driver who I told straight away I had only 10 soles (average fare in a taxi economico is 30). He made his way down from 30 to 25 to 20, all the while following me across the mostly empty blacktop. I swung around and said with a big smile, "Seriously, I´d love to take a taxi, but I ONLY HAVE TEN." (I actually had 15). He repeated, "Only ten?" then looked at the sky, surveyed the obvious lack of early morning fares (American Airlines had screwed not only me and Jon, but also the fleet of taxis waiting for that 4:30am arrival) and said, "Okay. We go." I had just struck the best Lima airport taxi fare deal of all time. And so Jimmy and I walked out of the parking lot to find his secretly parked taxi and he took me all the way back to Miraflores as the sun came up to shine a pink light over the city.

Finally got "confirmation" that Jon´s flight would be in at 3:30, which of course turned out to be 4:30 and so I figured I would take the public bus back to the airport in order to save money, especially seeing as last night I received (angry, disappointed) word from Mom and Dad that I was overdrawn on the Connecticut account. My "magic card" was indeed playing magical tricks by giving me money when I had none.

I ended up sharing a taxi with Gareth, Chris, Wiktor and Tom to Lima Centro, the historical district, from where I would then walk about 30 minutes through the truly lovely colonial Lima streets, making my way to a less than quaint part of town where the Aeropuerto bus was supposed to be. After several stopoffs in shops to consult my map, helping a man carry a bucket of putty across an intersection, and another few inquiries of men on the street, some who had the right information and some who had the wrong, I finally made it to the correct side of the crazy boulevard and got on the correct utterly dilapidated bus.

1 sol (about 35 cents) took me through shanty towns and past desert-cliffside pueblos for about 40 minutes. I kept trying to locate my position on the Lonely Planet map cause I was worried I might miss my stop as there are no announcements on this kind of a ride. But I should know by now that when a gringa gets on a local bus, everyone knows and the driver and/or the driver´s mate make sure to tell me. And yes, as we began to enter a wider, flatter part of the city where the blacktop was blacker, the driver caught my eye in the rearview and said "Aeropuerto" while smiling and waving his hand in the direction I would need to go.

The fear of navigating the seemingly random and utterly chaotic public transport systems in a 3rd world capital city comes from it being so entirely unknown, like anything I suppose. It is a fear based only on something you have created in your imagination. A fear of standing out. A fear of "doing something wrong." Self-consciousness can be like a paralysis. The thing is, once you do it, your confidence expands exponentially and this sense of victoriousness glows like a light in the bell of your being. It is remarkable what 35 cents and little adventurousness can do for your sense of self. It´s often hilarious, comical, or fraught with confusion and missteps, and my god OF COURSE you stand out! You´re like the grenade on the birthday cake. But when you arrive the thrill is almost absurd in it´s simplicity and totality. I felt like I´d crossed the finish line in some mammoth race, and all I´d done was take a bus that thousands of people take every single day. And I was sitting down the whole time.

Lima has been a sweet surprise. Peruvian´s, too. The random acts of kindness, like Jimmy the taxi driver, or like my security guard at the 24 grocery store this morning who gave me a free cup of coffee from his own personal thermos since the coffee machine was broken, or the woman who gave me the free Chavin keychain even after she very reluctantly dropped the price of a scarf by only 2 soles; the smiling and genuinely friendly service in restaurants and shops; the old man who walked me to my hostel--all of this has found me falling quite unexpectedly in love with Peru, and here I thought Ecuador had my heart entire.

It´s like Togo, where I was pickpocketed and held at gunpoint by the military on a dark dirt road but nevertheless felt so charmed and besotted by the people in general that those incidents would not decide my ultimate opinion of the nation. And here, where I´ve been robbed at gunpoint on a mountainside and where money changers tried to cheat my during my first 3 minutes in the country and where I have to pay to take pictures of the llamas and where the threat of danger does sometimes feel more tangible in the streets, I am nevertheless enchanted and so very sad my time here is already half gone.

I was so afraid and reluctant to leave Ecuador, when in fact what I needed to was to go. My funk, my frustration, my listlessness came or stemmed from, I think, staying too long in one place I loved. Much like what I was going through in New York. I need change. It rejuvenates me. Inspires me. Activates some energy field deep within my muscles and mind. It opens my eyes. I´ve been hoping somehow on this trip I´d find a sense or a place or a reason to "settle down somewhere." Maybe that just isn´t me. Maybe I don´t have to think in terms of "forever." And maybe finally I will allow that to be okay.