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Published: December 27th 2011
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Ok I’m back in, got a little behind on the blogs and I don’t think Mike was cherishing the thought of trying to write four or five blogs back to back too bring us back up to date, so it’s my turn again!
The journey to Lima from Quito is normally a short one of a few hours and therefore would not normally warrant a whole blog however this particular journey took us a whole day so we felt it should get a mention!
Our flight was due to leave at 8.30pm so after having gone through the shambles that is LAN’s checking in/bag drop process, received our exit stamp from immigration and passed through the bag scans we was in the departure lounge ready to go. Or so we thought!
As we was all sitting by the gate a whisper began passing through the lounge, this being in Spanish though we had no idea what was being said, suddenly everyone began flapping about and the noise level rose quite considerably, however we still just sat and assumed everything was ok as the screen still said our flight was leaving on time. It was only when everyone had
left the departure lounge and it was only us two and another English couple left that we thought maybe we should find out what was going on!!
Turns out, as you have already guessed I’m sure, the flight was cancelled, despite what the screens were telling us, how everyone knew this I don’t know as there was nobody from LAN around to tell us what was going on. Eventually a couple of LAN members of staff did arrive, to a very sarcastic round of applause, to try and explain what was happening!
Unfortunately there was no more flights to Lima that evening and as the 8.30pm flight was the only flight to Lima from Quito each day (they had already cancelled the next day’s flight as well by this point!) they was going to have to fly us all down to Guayaquil that night in order to catch the 7.50am flight to Lima the next morning.
Then the fun began! I’m not sure why but a group of maybe 20 of us was told to follow a young lady who would help us get on the correct flight. Where the rest of the plane was going I’m
not sure. So anyway we followed this lady around the airport for a good 45 minutes and it was clear she didn’t have a clue what she was meant to be doing with us. First we returned to exit immigration who didn’t care that we wasn’t leaving Ecuador that night, this meant we then had to pass through bag screening again to then make our way to entry immigration who clearly had no idea why we was there as they thought we had just arrived and asked us if this was our first time in Ecuador! We hung around there for a while whilst the LAN lady tried to decide our next step. As we was at entry immigration we had to pass through bag collection where a few bags that were in transit had been dropped off. So with a few bags collected, not all of them and not ours, and after another lengthy waste of time at bag collection we went through customs and another bag scan! We finally arrived at domestic check in where the rest of our bags awaited us. So one more check in and another bag scan later and we was in the domestic
departure lounge ready for our flight to Guayaquil.
Turns out after all this all they should have done was just moved us through to the departure lounge for domestic flights, where the rest of our flight companions awaited us, simples!
We arrived at our hotel that LAN was providing in Guayaquil around 12.30am and tried to get through check in and up to the room as quick as possible as the coach the next morning was picking us up to go back to the airport at 5.30am. We needed to get some sleep!! Sadly we did not get to make use of the dinner or breakfast voucher we had been given due to the ridiculous time we had arrived and then had to depart!
Right on schedule the coach arrived and we was back at the airport ready to go to Lima, however someone was not on our side! As the departure time got nearer and nearer and we was not boarding we began to realise there was another problem. Eventually after another delayed response from LAN we found out the flight was delayed with no updates to be provided until 11.30am. This didn’t please people at
all as we later found out that a lot of the people on our flight had been trying to get to Lima for the past three days and all their flights up till know had been cancelled, so we was beginning to understand peoples frustrations!
The flight eventually was cancelled as a part that had been ordered for the plane had not arrived, annoying but better to cancel I think, however they was going to fly another plane in from Miami for us we just had to wait until 1.30pm. To be honest as me and Mike was not on any time restrictions we just rolled with the whole thing, yes it was frustrating and boring but we was lucky we had nowhere specific to be, a lot of people on our flight had missed connections and some even had tickets for Machu Picchu that they was in danger of missing so we felt for these guys. I’m not sure if this was just an unfortunate blip for LAN or if this is a common occurrence, we was told that they often cancel flights especially to Lima but we have absolutely nothing to back this up with so we
can only put it down to a one off unfortunate experience.
We arrived in Lima, finally, and tried to make our way to the hostel we had chosen, I think though we fell prey to the old trick your hostel is full!! Always tell them you have a reservation!! After the driver made a phone call and confirmed the hostel was indeed ‘full’ the driver took us to another hostel, this was after trying to convince us the alternative hostel we chosen was also full! I just don’t think we had it in us to argue, the hostel we arrived at wasn’t amazing but for one night, we had already decided to move on the next day, it would do and it was within the budget, so I hope the driver enjoyed his commission!
As we were only around for one evening we knew we should do something so we headed out to Circuito Magico del Agua, the water fountain park. We wasn’t expecting much but was pleasantly surprised, the light show was probably the best we have seen and the other fountains were very pretty and it was a very nice way to spend a couple of
hours that evening. We also had a walk around the Parque Kennedy area which was buzzing and had some dinner before heading back to the hostel.
Unfortunately our time in Lima was cut short however we felt that we had spent enough time in big cities and was ready for a smaller town so was looking forward to heading to Nazca to see the famous mystical lines.
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