12 hour flights with todlers at twelvety o clock

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Wow twelve hour flights really are a joy. Air Iberia don´t have the little TV screens in the back of the seats so we watched the shared screens towards the front. For the first three hours they displayed nothing but our painfully slow crawl across the atlantic. I´m trying not to think of the environmental damage. The trees, o the poor trees.

There was a cute little French todler in the row infront of us entertaining everyone but standing on his dads head and performing some ranting, growling monster speach with a bit of singing at the end. It was much better than the Eddie Murphy movie ´Meet Dave´ and the other bilge that was shown. Having said that by hour seven the todlers antics were becoming less entertaining and began to grate a little. By hour ten I felt it was only a matter of time before he would be locked in one of the toilets and perhaps even flushed away. Poor lad, the flight wasn´t pleasant for me it must have been hell for him.

I didn´t sleep so much as blink for ten minutes at a time. BLINK a woman bumps past me on her way to the toilet. BLINK man beats out a rhythm on the overhead storage. BLINK a man trys o sell me things I do not want - that was a dream. BLINK Yummy, yummy, yummy I got sun in my tummy. Orange nectar from the trolly in the sky. A glass of orange juice sweet and refreshing and just what I needed. BLINK arrrg will this flight ever end.

We endured a 1 hour wait for our bags. Lou´s was possible the last bag to come around and we were getting a little nervous. At customs you have to press a big button and if a green light shows you go through. If a red light shows your bags get searched. It adds a nice little gameshow element to the experience. Perhaps you should have to run out of customs across inflatable floats over a pool whilst people in penguine costumes throw fish at you.

We were totally ripped off by the taxi from the airport but a little nervous and exhausted we didn´t have the energy to haggle or find an alternative.

Since then I have had a good nights sleep. I woke up at 6.45 this morning but it could have been twelvety and seventy four hundred hours as far as my body clock is concerned.

I´m loving walking around Lima, trying out bits of Spanish and feeling like I´ve now started the ´good bit´ of the experience.


We leave for Matsu Pitsu on Sunday.

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