Up & At Them Early
It's like I don't sleep any more, since I've been on a photo shoot for a week now. Well, that part of my adventure ended, but a new part has just begun. I was up very very early at the crack of dawn to get to the airport in Guayaquil very early to catch my flight to Lima. However, once I got there & waited in queue it seemed like no one was telling you that it was going to be like a two hour wait to find out that your flight has been delayed due to a storm in New York & that LAN had to get an airplane sent up from Chile to take you. I didn't find this out until I spoke with the nice ticket agent who was lovely & she appreciated that I asked her how her morning was going & told her that I understood her frustration; I do don't kid me wrong on that. I was being kind & was calm during the hole event. No need to stress over it, really there wasn't. I had a feeling that something like that was going to be had with the weather in Lima or a Northeaster. Well, I ended up getting my boarding pass & got myself a meal ticket from the airlines. Another breaky was had. Found myself a nice quite area in the clean airport to take a wee siesta too. So after I get threw immigration & customs I found myself getting another meal ticket from the airlines for the delay. You wouldn't get that from an American carrier. Not alone to factor in special diets, especially with people who are vegetarian & vegan cos it's becoming more mainstream. I almost had it out with American a couple weeks ago requesting a vegetarian meal, but they claimed that "they can't & only do it on Trans Atlantic flights", go figure. Plus it's hard in Latin American to find vegetarian & vegan at the airport or on a menu cos almost everything has meat in. Come on, wake up & smell the coffee, people do have special needs too. Get with the picture on the fact that everything doesn't have to have meat in or cheese for that matter. However, my Spanish is worst than my Japanese & I could pull out how to order in Japanese if I had to. Also, I found myself thinking in Japanese too in the last twenty four hours. "Ikura desu ka" or "Doko ni desu ka". Anywho, after two in the afternoon I found my was to Peru on board a LAN flight. I enjoyed watching a beginning of a movie & a couple of glasses of red wine that I didn't have to pay for. Got to love flying international cos they don't charge you & pamper you in coach with things that the American carriers have cut just to claim that they are "saving money". I had a nice chat with the girl sitting next to me who was on her way to LAX who was from Guayaquil over the cultural differences of flying & traveling these days. Sad to say that not all Americans have taken the opportunity to see how beautiful the world is. Really, it is, just go out & see it before you sit around regretting that you didn't take that chance. It's not bad out there, really it's not, do your research before you go. So I made it to Lima, like five hours late. Found myself a taxi driver who spoke English to take me to the hostel Pariwana Lima in Miraflores. Just make sure when booking one that the price is right, clean, safety, breakfast included, tour company & fun. Must check all the backpacker resources to find a good one. I ended up with one of those bracelets that you get at a bar, but the last time I had one on was when Ku-chan gave them out in Awaiji or another one of his gigs back in Shimane. Of course I was chatting with him cos he lived in NYC, the Bronx's actually for a bit & have seen New England. I asked if he ate Lobster & he said yes. The taxi driver was a character for sure. I apparently scored a deal from the airport by paying twenty dollars for a taxi. Then the next step was to find myself changing money, which I did next to the bank near the park, but the money agent had to take a wee cut cos I gave him a ripped twenty dollar bill, oh well, I didn't have to pay for my airport transfer bright & early this morning. Just didn't win that battle. Now, I'm in a section of Lima that reminds me of being back in Perth, Melbourne or Sydney in a way with cafes & shopping arcades. Took a wee walk & scoped out some possible photo sites for a street photography. Rich in culture feel. I'm not too far away from the beach either. Nice to see the breaks out which Lima is also famous for besides being "the food capital of South America". Oh, it might be an early one cos of the crazy day traveled, but I hope that it's worth it....