So we were just chilling in our hotel, which was not a normal hotel let me tell you. I couldn't decide if I liked it or not. It was like an old castle, but it smelled musty and our room door didn't exactly lock and my bed was really hard, but hey, it looked cool..
And that's when we heard the news. The miners all around Peru had just started a strike. They were blocking roads and burning things. They had blocked the road between Arequipa and Lima. For the rest of the afternoon we heard bits and pieces of more news. No vehicles were getting through the road block. A bus had tried to drive forward and the miners attacked the bus, beating it and killed several people. Some said the roads would be open the next day, the day after, in a week. Who knew.
But we knew we needed to get to Lima to catch our flight back to the States. By this time it was evening. We decided we would figure out what we would do the next day.
In the morning we heard that we could get our bus tickets refunded at the bus station, and we could get vouchers there for airline flights to Lima. Apparently Peruvian army jets were going to fly people out to Lima. But then we heard that this wouldn't work for us since first they would be taking the people who had already been waiting 3 or 4 days to get to Lima and we had only waited one day. This would put us at the back of the line-up and then we wouldn't get to Lima on time to catch our flights home. So while one group went to the bus station to get the bus tickets refunded the rest of us headed to an airline office in the city to see what tickets we could buy. We caught a taxi bus and as we headed towards the airline office the streets got more and more crowded and louder and louder. What was going on? Finally we had to leave the taxi to actually make any progress. We neared the throng of people and that's when I realized they were strikers, and family of the mining strikers, and what seemed like half the city. They were shouting and holding signs and they looked angry. A truck slowly drove down the middle of the road in the midst of the crowd. A man was yelling loudly over its speaker system. Some of the crowd cast cold glances at us and a lady in our group who spoke Spanish said they were making snide comments about the Americans. So we hurried as quickly as you can through a crowd like that and with relief ducked into the quiet and "security" of the airline office. The crowd continued rushing by outside as we struggled to work with the airline agents who spoke little or no English. Most, if not all, of the tickets had been sold out. Finally all of us were able to purchase tickets on several different flights. But some members of our group, whose flights back to the U.S. left a day earlier than ours, would still not get back to Lima in time. They decided to take their newly purchased tickets, go to the airport and try and fly standby. We headed back to the hotel. But at the hotel we heard that there might actually be hope for us to catch a flight on the Peruvian army jet. Nothing seemed certain, everything was up in the air and I really didn't know what was happening. We agreed the best thing to do was go to the airport and just sit it out and see what would happen. By this time I was really hoping that we would get to be airlifted out in a Peruvian army jet! How cool would that be! But as our taxi van neared the airport, my hopes dropped. There were people everywhere! And I mean everywhere! The entire parking lot was full of people. People on the sidewalk, people on the cement, and lots of people on the grass areas between the lanes of cars. And all these people were waiting for a ride out on that Peruvian army jet. They were "in line" waiting, some had been waiting for 4 days I heard, just camped out in the parking lot, since they were not allowed to camp in the airport. We drove past all the people and grabbing our luggage went into the airport. There we met the rest of our group who had gone to the airport before. They announced the sad news that only Peruvians were allowed to fly standby. There was no hope for them. By this time the faithful Spanish-speaking member of our group, Carol, had made herself acquainted with an airport official. I heard bits and pieces of what was going on as the hours dragged by as I sat on my suitcase, leaned up against my suitcase, paced around my suitcase, laid on my suitcase, ate on my suitcase, almost fell asleep on my suitcase. The Peruvian army jet was coming in an hour, then it was coming in three hours. They would make as many trips as they needed to pick everyone up, then I heard they would only be bringing two planes and making two trips. It seemed things were always changing and it seemed we had been there forever and it was night by now. And then the airport official rushing over told us to hurry and get in a line. There I met an Australian couple and their two surf boards. They had come over to surf the South American coast line. Sounded like fun to me. And now I was just sitting on my suitcase somewhere else in the airport. Then the line started to move. A man dressed in army fatigues handed us little plastic "boarding passes."
They looked like weekend passes for the soldiers but in the whole craziness of what was going on I guess they had decided to use them as boarding passes. Clutching our passes the line pushed out a small door onto the tarmac. When it seemed a couple hundred people had left the airport terminal they shut the door. It was really only a drop in the bucket compared to all the people still waiting. It was dark out and soldiers rushed around. A huge jet with engines roaring was parked a bit away. Soldiers barked at us to form a line. There were Peruvian civilians on what seemed to be an open area on the roof of the airport. They looked down on us and were yelling loudly and angrily. Someone who spoke Spanish told me they were very upset that we just showed up at the airport and cut in front of the hundreds of waiting Peruvians and were getting the first flight out. I really did feel badly about all the waiting people, but I was also relieved that God was working everything out for us to get to Lima in time to catch our flights back to the States. As the line starting slowly making its way towards the cargo jet, my excitement mounted! Despite the scariness of the strike, I was thrilled to be getting to go on an army cargo jet!
The inside of the cargo jet was just that, made for cargo, but there were mesh-like seats with ancient seat belts that took me forever to figure out. I actually didn't figure them out, someone had to help me. :)
Everyone's luggage was stashed around us, on the floor, under the seats, but it all fit in. It was really loud in the jet and and as we took off I could feel the cabin pressure changing. I don't think it was quite as pressurized as a normal commercial airline. We had about an hour flight to Lima and despite how stoked I was about our awesome flight I drowsed most of the flight home, but only because I was just starting to get a cold and I was exhausted and it was really late. But I did hear a couple people in our group laughing hilariously most of the flight because of their high consumption levels of Inca Cola.
The army jet had taken off from a regular airport, but when we reached Lima we landed at the army base. We piled off the plane. The night air was humid and sticky after being in the cool jet. After riding in army buses to the "terminal" we collected our baggage and hailed a taxi. I honestly don't remember the drive to the hotel, carrying my suitcase to my room or anything. And the next day (or was it the day after?) we flew home to the USA, this time on a more normal (but not nearly as cool) airplane.
And that's when we heard the news. The miners all around Peru had just started a strike. They were blocking roads and burning things. They had blocked the road between Arequipa and Lima. For the rest of the afternoon we heard bits and pieces of more news. No vehicles were getting through the road block. A bus had tried to drive forward and the miners attacked the bus, beating it and killed several people. Some said the roads would be open the next day, the day after, in a week. Who knew.
But we knew we needed to get to Lima to catch our flight back to the States. By this time it was evening. We decided we would figure out what we would do the next day.
In the morning we heard that we could get our bus tickets refunded at the bus station, and we could get vouchers there for airline flights to Lima. Apparently Peruvian army jets were going to fly people out to Lima. But then we heard that this wouldn't work for us since first they would be taking the people who had already been waiting 3 or 4 days to get to Lima and we had only waited one day. This would put us at the back of the line-up and then we wouldn't get to Lima on time to catch our flights home. So while one group went to the bus station to get the bus tickets refunded the rest of us headed to an airline office in the city to see what tickets we could buy. We caught a taxi bus and as we headed towards the airline office the streets got more and more crowded and louder and louder. What was going on? Finally we had to leave the taxi to actually make any progress. We neared the throng of people and that's when I realized they were strikers, and family of the mining strikers, and what seemed like half the city. They were shouting and holding signs and they looked angry. A truck slowly drove down the middle of the road in the midst of the crowd. A man was yelling loudly over its speaker system. Some of the crowd cast cold glances at us and a lady in our group who spoke Spanish said they were making snide comments about the Americans. So we hurried as quickly as you can through a crowd like that and with relief ducked into the quiet and "security" of the airline office. The crowd continued rushing by outside as we struggled to work with the airline agents who spoke little or no English. Most, if not all, of the tickets had been sold out. Finally all of us were able to purchase tickets on several different flights. But some members of our group, whose flights back to the U.S. left a day earlier than ours, would still not get back to Lima in time. They decided to take their newly purchased tickets, go to the airport and try and fly standby. We headed back to the hotel. But at the hotel we heard that there might actually be hope for us to catch a flight on the Peruvian army jet. Nothing seemed certain, everything was up in the air and I really didn't know what was happening. We agreed the best thing to do was go to the airport and just sit it out and see what would happen. By this time I was really hoping that we would get to be airlifted out in a Peruvian army jet! How cool would that be! But as our taxi van neared the airport, my hopes dropped. There were people everywhere! And I mean everywhere! The entire parking lot was full of people. People on the sidewalk, people on the cement, and lots of people on the grass areas between the lanes of cars. And all these people were waiting for a ride out on that Peruvian army jet. They were "in line" waiting, some had been waiting for 4 days I heard, just camped out in the parking lot, since they were not allowed to camp in the airport. We drove past all the people and grabbing our luggage went into the airport. There we met the rest of our group who had gone to the airport before. They announced the sad news that only Peruvians were allowed to fly standby. There was no hope for them. By this time the faithful Spanish-speaking member of our group, Carol, had made herself acquainted with an airport official. I heard bits and pieces of what was going on as the hours dragged by as I sat on my suitcase, leaned up against my suitcase, paced around my suitcase, laid on my suitcase, ate on my suitcase, almost fell asleep on my suitcase. The Peruvian army jet was coming in an hour, then it was coming in three hours. They would make as many trips as they needed to pick everyone up, then I heard they would only be bringing two planes and making two trips. It seemed things were always changing and it seemed we had been there forever and it was night by now. And then the airport official rushing over told us to hurry and get in a line. There I met an Australian couple and their two surf boards. They had come over to surf the South American coast line. Sounded like fun to me. And now I was just sitting on my suitcase somewhere else in the airport. Then the line started to move. A man dressed in army fatigues handed us little plastic "boarding passes."
The army jet had taken off from a regular airport, but when we reached Lima we landed at the army base. We piled off the plane. The night air was humid and sticky after being in the cool jet. After riding in army buses to the "terminal" we collected our baggage and hailed a taxi. I honestly don't remember the drive to the hotel, carrying my suitcase to my room or anything. And the next day (or was it the day after?) we flew home to the USA, this time on a more normal (but not nearly as cool) airplane.
I just found your blog, Alissa! :) Great description of this trip and fun to see pictures. I can't imagine how frustrating and scary that must have been.
ReplyDeleteLooks like I have a lot to read... =)