Miami Airport travails

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You enter Latin America as soon as you step off your flight and realise that English is the second language here.



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Immigration - the queues are enormous and bilingual. The guy at the desk cracks jokes, some of them are pretty funny.

"The bosses don't like it", he says, "but it passes the time."



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Our bags don't seem to have arrived. I find the information desk:

-"Have you tried looking on the belt?"

-Yes. Several times.

-"Have you tried looking next to the belt?"

(They dump bags on the ground next to the belt while everyone is stuck in immigration. In a security obsessed country, this strikes us as poor. Meanwhile we find ourselves warming up to the arrogance of the assumption that everyone must want to enter the US....)

-Yes, three times. I say, as politely as I can muster.

-"Have you tried looking at the outsize baggage?

-Yes, there's nothing there. Politely, once again.

Those behind the desk start laughing, I think it's at my apparent cheek....

"Well in that case, your bags must not be here."

.

.

Jeezo!! "Thanks a bunch, Sherlock Effing Holmes!", I think to myself. I think me and Rhona might have realised that after half an hour of searching. Maybe we were kind of hoping for something a little more..... useful! Like you telling us where they were for instance.



--- A the point I write this, a mango drops on to the roof of where I sit in Jocotan. ---



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Miami Security control - The Jamaican woman points at Rhona' shoes on the belt and repeatedly asks me if they are mine. Huh?! I don't even understand. Do I look like I take a woman's size 4. I last wore a size 4 when I was 9!

It's slow and disorganised, by now we only have 20 minutes to get to our connection. We walk-jog-run to the gate, not knowing if our bags are on the plane or not.

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