Day 1--Flight to Lima, Ecuador

Monday, February 4, 2008

Jeff could not take us to the airport because he had classes, and Valerie could not take the time off from work either, so Dean came by at 10 am to gather me and my equipment for the 1:00 pm flight out of OKC to Houston and thence to Lima Peru. We parked in long-term parking. Valerie planned on coming down to pick up the car the following day.

When we arrived in Lima at 11:30 PM, a representative from the Manhattan Inn Airport Hotel was waving a large sign that read “Susan Walker,” so was fairly easy to spot in a the very large group of jostling people waiting for passengers to clear customs. The man carrying the sign grabbed our bags and hustled us to the parking lot and his hotel shuttle—a small Toyota car. He stuffed us and our baggage in, and off we went through absolutely crazy traffic with motocarros (three-wheeled motorcycle rickshaws) vying for space among all types of cars, trucks, bicycles, and buses, the buses stuffed with passengers—might be 20 or so passengers in a bus designed for 8 or 10, for instance—all drivers swerving around each other and beeping their horns continually. The smell of airplane fuel mixed with the visible vehicle emissions was very strong, particularly as the driver drove with the windows open, and made me feel nauseous. 

One of our first sights—other than the pedestrian and traffic congestion at nearly midnight—was large billboards advertising Clarō (a dominant cell phone company), as well as the usual cars  hotels, and clothing stores. There were Clarō reps in the airport, too, pushing us to rent a phone for our stay.

When the taxi turned off the multi-lane highway about five minutes from the airport into a run-down section of town, I had my doubts about the safety of our Manhattan Hotel, which was not near any others and opposite a park. It certainly did not live up to its name, but at a mere $39 a night (as opposed to a couple of hundred in the Miraflores tourist district), it was clean and adequate—though not air conditioned. The woman at the front desk spoke very good English and was accommodating. We immediately booked the airport “shuttle” and a room for our return day. Though we would not spend the night in it, we wanted a place where we could leave our luggage, rest, and shower before our 12:40am flight to Houston, February 17.

And, this day, too (now the 5th) we were to occupy our rooms for mere hours. At 3 a.m. we were hyped up and sitting at the little table in Dean’s room having a nightcap.