It’s Just Poison…

This was the first day of the trip to South America, but really it all started the day before. Before taking off, we decided to have a a couple friends over for a kind-of impromptu going away party. We had some drinks, and hung out until about 4am. At about 5am, our car showed up to take us to Laguardia. Our first flight was at 6:40am to Ft. Lauderdale Florida.

We didn’t have any hassles at the airport, so we got right to the gate, and waited about 10 minutes before we began to board. Lucky me, the exit row was already taken by people that didn’t need it, so I got to sit in a standard coach seat with my knees in my face for about 3 hours. I was pretty tired and the buzz from the alcohol was wearing off, so I drifted in and out of consciousness most of the way.

Ahhh, Ft. Lauderdale. I have a new favorite airport to hate now. We landed around 9:30am, and because the next part of our trip (Ft. Lauderdale -> Lima, Peru) was in a different terminal, we had to get our boarding passes and go through security again. I never would have expected the line just to get our boarding passes. Because pretty much everyone that flies out of here is going international, the “check-yourself-in” kiosks were pretty much useless. The line literally went outside of the airport checking area and around the corner outside about 200 feet. This obviously isn’t anything new either, as they had permanent canopies outside for shade for all the people waiting in line. To add to the fun, they were calling out flights that were about to leave to get everyone onboard in time. Well, our flight didn’t leave until 4:30pm, so needless to say, everyone wound up getting called ahead of us. We waited in line about an hour - hour and a half just to get our boarding passes. On the upside, when we got to security, all the other flights had already left, so there wasn’t any line =). While we waited for our flight to board, we planned out and purchased our tickets for the remainder of our trip (everything but Lima). We decided to figure out sleeping arrangements for each leg of the trip once we arrived there. For the flight to Peru, I got the exit row, so I was pretty comfortable the whole trip. We landed in Peru around 10:30pm. The airport was really nice and new. I celebrated being south of the equator for the time with a traditional Peruvian meal: Sandwich Mixto (Ham and Cheese =) and a coke. Now that we had food in our bellies, we headed to our gate to wait some more for our flight to Santiago, Chile that was to be boarding at 1am Sunday (roughly 2 hours).

Tags: Travels //