DAY 1 -- WICHITA TO LIMA

This day begins at the Wichita airport where I see midnight come and go on my way to 1.30 a.m. and the end of my working shift for US Airways. Following three hours sleep or so, I´m up at 5 and back to the airport at 6. I make a last minute decision to take AirTran through Atlanta and on to Miami rather than American Airlines through Dallas as previously planned. I soon realize that the AirTran connection won´t get me to MIA in time for the 5.30 p.m. flight to Lima, Peru.

What to do? Delta could get me from ATL to MIA in time, but what about my bag that was checked from ICT to MIA and will wait within the bowels of Atlanta´s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport for five hours until the AirTran flight. If I can just retrieve it, I can go on Delta to MIA. If I go on Delta to MIA, I can catch the 5.30 p.m. American Airlines flight to Lima. If I catch the 5.30 flight, I can conceivably sleep a few hours before returning to the LIM airport for a flight the following morning. On the other hand, if I don´t make the 5.30 flight, any later one will involve an overnight flight and no bed. The preferred scenario of an early flight and a few hours in bed hinges on one thing: retrieving my bag from AirTran.

There´s nothing to do but to go to the AirTran baggage office and throw myself on their mercy. Surprisingly, they take the high road and attempt to find my bag though they certainly didn´t have to do that. It takes awhile, more than an hour, but I get my bag and can check-in with Delta. There´s no problem checking in or getting a seat aboard DL598 which has me in MIA more than two hours prior to American´s scheduled departure to LIM.

The weather is beautiful across the entire southeastern United States. The view´s a sightseer´s delight as the plane (B737-800) flies over Miami and eastward over the aqua and indigo waters of the Atlantic, then turns back west to make its low approach over Miami Beach and Miami. We fly over towering hotels and condos, golf courses, sports stadiums, and smaller buildings that evoke a whiff of the Caribbean with their terra cotta roofs and paint schemes favoring bright yellows and bold shades of blue.

I entered the MIA airport confident that I´d get on AA917 to LIM. I checked in at international departures, endured yet another TSA line dance, removed my shoes and exposed my holey socks for the third time today, and hied my way to gate C7 an hour prior to departure. There I was informed that the flight was ¨weight restricted¨which means, in short, that the plane might well pull away from the gate with empty seats and would-be passengers left behind due to load considerations.

AA917 left the gate a half-hour late. Connecting passengers continued running up right to the scheduled departure time and after--each one representing a seat I wouldn´t get. A cluster of standby passengers like me stood worrying around the departure gate. The scene was somewhat chaotic. We were all jubilant to get on, reacting much like successful game show contestants picked to ¨come on down!¨ We wasted no time boarding the plane (an Airbus 300) and settling in for the 5+-hour flight.

I spend the flight reviewing my Lonely Planet Peru guide and some notes on Spanish. A desultory meal is served and is eaten joylessly. Customs papers are completed and journal notes taken. We proceed southward, overtaking the Tropic of Capricorn and then the Equator on our way to Lima.

I doze a bit, contend with my restless legs, wish the flight to be over, and soon enough it is. I get through customs in a matter of minutes. I access an ATM to withdraw Peruvian currency (nueva soles: approx 3.2=$1 USD). It´s here that I make an egregious mistake: the ATM is one that retains your card for the duration of the transaction rather than simply requiring a swipe of the card. Well, I´m used to swiping my card, then putting it away. By the time the transaction was completed, I forgot to retrieve my card and didn´t become aware of the fact till unloading my pockets at the hotel.

After clearing customs, withdrawing some money, and retrieving my checked bag, it was time to find my ride to the hotel. Suffice to say that the arrival section of the Lima airport is frantic. That much I remembered. A crush of family and touts, separated from arriving passengers by steel barricades, vie for attention vocally and with signboards. I had arranged for a taxi to my lodging via the Internet, so was looking among the sea of signs for one sign that read ¨Hotel Espana¨or ¨Farrell.¨

I finally spotted it and met Joseph, a late teen in scruffy clothes. Wait, he says, I have to make a call. It turns out that Joseph was the intermediary and he would call the driver waiting outside the airport grounds. You should see what drove up! It was a very small, very old, unmarked grey sedan driven by a middle-aged man. At this point I am equal parts wary and weary. Hotel Espana was very cordial in their e-mails and they had arranged this ride I guess...nobody else in Lima would be able to put my name on a signboard.

Victor, the driver as well as Joseph´s father, puts my bag in the trunk and invites me to share the front of his cab. Off we go! It´s just before midnight as we head out onto the streets of Lima. Barb and I had an old, grey wreck-of-a-car back around 1970, an Opel. Imagine if that same vehicle had been driven hard during the intervening decades, finally taking the Pan-American Highway to Peru. Then imagine our route through Lima: gaping potholes, trash-strewn streets, aggressive traffic, honking horns. I didn´t know where we were going, but I hoped it was to Hotel Espana.

Victor and I had a nice conversation in broken Spanish, and we did end up at the hotel. Housed in what was probably once a grand home, it is now several floors of small rooms, some with private baths and some with shared. I take a small (less than 100 sq ft) room with shared bath for 24 soles (less than $8), breakfast included.

Though somewhat rundown, and certainly not in a great area of Lima, the place was very clean. One interesting feature was a glass case in the lobby proudly displaying, without any interpretation, several human skulls. I´m left to ponder their significance.