Peru Fall 2013 Day 1

Peru Fall 2013 Day 1

Today started out with an early wakeup for a 9:36 flight to Panama on Copa Airlines where I would switch to a flight to Lima.  I got to the airport at 6:30 and check in and security were quick and easy if there was a little bit of a slowdown at security.  I got into the gate area and found The Earl of Sandwich to get a cranberry muffin and a coffee and made a quick visit to the newsstand to get some snack food for the trip.

The plane was to depart from gate E4.  Only a few minutes after reaching the gates they changed the departure time from 9:36 to 9:54. They started boarding us and it was obvious it was not a full flight. I was on an aisle seat but I had a nervous type guy who was doing the jittery leg thing and I asked if I could move to another empty aisle seat and the attendant said yes. It was the second part of an exit row, so no extra leg room but at least no one next to me.

Of course we were on the plane for about 15-20 minutes when they announced they had to have us all deplane because there was a systems failure in Panama and the entire Copa fleet was grounded. They had no ETA but we had to exit the plane with our belongings and wait at the gate.  They assured us since the whole fleet was grounded that any connecting flights would also be delayed so at least we shouldn’t need to rebook to a new flight.

I chose to start writing this during the wait as there was little else to do. After we were about 45 minutes late they reiterated that they had no idea how long the delay was going to be and they would keep us posted.

An hour and a half later we still had no updates other than there were no updates.  So I chose to go to Burger King and get lunch. I had just finished eating a BK double-stacker which was probably a bad idea they started calling the business class passengers to give them vouchers of some sort. Even though the reposted the flight info on the gate board they said they still had no information about when things were going to start moving and they had no information on what was going to happen to connecting flights.  The activity of course caused everyone, myself included, to think they were going to start boarding the flight.  By this point it was almost 2 and a half hours past original departure time.  Very frustrating to say the least.  Especially when there is perfect weather outside.

Of course after I bought the lunch they gave meal vouchers for the airport to the passengers.  I figured I would have to do something with it but not today.  I spoke to Daniela on the phone through Viber for a few minutes because it had been so frustrating.

At 1:20 they called all passengers to get their boarding passes back so they could reboard the plane properly. The person who gave me the pass said it would be boarding in about an hour and another attendant told me they were waiting for the crew. They said that flights would be going to Lima until about 9pm but all flights are delayed out of Panama.  I should be able to get there tonight but I would be arriving past midnight most likely.  I kept as vigilant an eye out for the crew as I could.  They told us we would probably start boarding at 2:30 to 2:40 but the flight crew didn’t even get back to the airplane until about 10 minutes to 3.  The of course didn’t start boarding right away. I wonder where the heck they sent the flight crew for the wait?  It is nuts that they could be hours away when they are supposed to be flying.  They still didn’t know if we would be able to make connections by the time we were boarding.

It was a reasonably quick boarding process and we weren’t on the tarmac for too long before they departed. Still, more than 6 hours late is fairly too much. In any event the flight entertainment was not individual seat style and they showed the new Star Trek film which I refuse to watch on principle so I skipped on that. They served either arroz con pollo or ravioli con carne and I chose the ravioli with some very rough Chilean red wine I sort of wish I skipped on.  The early parts of the flight were smooth with only a few bumps.  I chose to drag out the computer and watch a movie.  Well actually I chose to watch the final episode of the IT Crowd and I hope I didn’t disturb the people around me too much because I really laughed a lot.  From there I decided maybe I could sleep a bit but I wasn’t really able to so I turned on the various  music stations and cycled through the full set of songs on each.

Eventually we landed and sat on the tarmac for a bit before getting to a gate. We were basically told to go to customer service at gate 21 at our arrival gate which was like gate 2.  When I got to customer service there was a long line and no one working the desk. I started on my phone and on a hunch that I was reading the flight status correctly I was able to figure out that my scheduled departure from Panama to Lima still hadn’t left. I hurried over there and was met with a sign that was for Recife instead but the women at the gate said it would indeed be my flight to Lima. We needed to wait for the crew to arrive and be ready again but we would board as soon as they were.  I thought I had seen some crew come in when I arrived at the gate but I cannot be sure. They were loading in the catering when I got there anyway and that finished a few minutes later.

I took a few minutes to sit down and type this while I used my computer to charge my phone a bit. I didn’t have a charger with me, only the cable. The charger was in my suitcase. Unfortunately the battery on the laptop was also a bit low as I had used it a lot during the wait through the day and on the plane. Still if I could suck out a few % of battery for the phone it would be more helpful for giving Daniela updates and eventually for if and when I arrived in Lima.  I should point out that the weather in Panama was as to be expected. Wicked hot and wicked humid. The massive crowds in the airport beyond normal were not helping things at all. I was hoping the crew would arrive quickly so I could be in a climate controlled cabin soon.  It took probably another 40 minutes before they let us board.

After we boarded the air conditioning was awesome compared to the airport but we sat at the gate for over another hour and a half.  Eventually somewhere around 12:00am local time we were able to get off the ground and the flight was about 3 hours. I slept through almost all of it except the very beginning and landing.  I raced to the immigration line which was empty when I got there and got through as the 4th person so was first in line for 3 agents.  After that it was wait for the baggage at the claim. That took a few minutes. I went through customs and I thought it was going to be easy but the guy picked me out to go through a checking. I was very lucky in that when he asked me why I was visiting I said it was to get married and my fiancé was waiting outside.  He let me go without actually checking.

Daniela was waiting outside. We took a taxi to get the key to the apartment then straight to the apartment where we just went straight to bed. It was basically 4:30am by that point. A very long and frustrating day. But it was all just fine when I finally got here and saw and was with her.

The pictures of the apartment are located here.