To all who have seen the bizarre facebook status updates as they've gone by, here's the whole story of Mario's difficult journey to Peru and back over the past three days.
He came to meet me here in Lima on Friday so he left early Friday morning. He had an all day layover in Panama City and he arrived in Lima about 10:30 Friday night. We were all excited to see each other and then I got a phone call from him saying that he couldn't pass immigration. I thought he was just teasing me so I laughed at first until I realized he was serious.
Apparently, citizens of Central American countries need a Visa to enter Peru. It only costs $12 but they make you buy it in your home country. The airline allowed him to check in without checking to see that he had this Visa. So he got stuck in the Lima airport all night on Friday to be sent back to Panama on Saturday morning.
He needed to get to a Peruvian consulate so I thought it made more sense to just stay in Panama for the weekend until the consulate opened on Monday so he could fly directly from there without risking another long layover. He spent all Saturday talking to airline officials and finally they said he could leave the airport.
As he left the airport however, the arrested him. I guess because he was in transit, technically deported, he wasn't allowed to exit the airport until Costa Rica. Of course no one had told him that either.
So they put him in a room with 8 smelly guys and nothing like a bed. And someone had even stolen his toothbrush, which, if you know Mario, is a really big deal. This is his second night spent in an airport since he left CR. He called me exhausted and upset, as you can imagine, and there was nothing I could do. I told him to go eat and buy a new toothbrush and that I loved him.
He was supposed to fly out the following morning at 7am but just as he was about to board his flight they canceled the entire flight due to plane trouble. He tried all day to get on another flight but he couldn’t track down any airline officials all day and when he did all that was left was the next morning. He still couldn’t leave the airport. So Mario spent ANOTHER day and night, his third, in the airport.
He was then supposed to be on a flight this morning (Monday) at 5am. They said they would call him but they changed the gate without telling him so he missed that one too.
Finally they put him on a flight that left at 8:40 this morning and he must be on it because I haven’t heard anything otherwise.
Once he gets to Costa Rica he has to go to do battle with TACA to make them give him a new roundtrip ticket back to Lima, since it was their fault they didn’t properly check his passport on check-in. I think truly, it’s the very least they can do. Also he will have to go to the Peruvian embassy and hopefully get the stupid visa and then maybe, if that all comes together, he can travel all over again just to come see me.
It’s been a nightmare and every time I think it’s at its worst it worsens somehow.
So he’s had terrible luck but I, most certainly, have been very fortunate. I left Santiago just a matter of hours before the earthquake. The airport has been shut down for days and will continue to be for a while more. I can’t imagine how awful it would have been had I tried to leave the country just a day later.
So that’s our epic tale for the present. Not even including all the stuff from work. Life’s been very weird lately so I’m hoping things will begin to normalize soon and Mario and I can just have a nice vacation together in Peru.
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