Left Behind

"You are guilty of no evil, Ransome of Thulcandra, except a little fearfulness. For that, the journey you go on is your pain, and perhaps your cure: for you must be either mad or brave before it is ended."- C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Plant, p.142

Well, from the above quote, one may surmise that my trip to Chile was not uneventful. I had been reading Out of the Silent Planet and ironically read the above quote sitting by myself in the Lima airport after Jami and Allen had already departed and I was left waiting for the arrival of an apparently very important little piece of plastic. Shall I tell my tale? Of course I should- it's my blog.

We began our travels Wednesday evening fairly uneventfully - the plane was an hour late leaving Trujillo, but we would have been more surprised had it left on time. The only concern at this point was getting to Chili's in Lima before they closed. We did arrive in time for the aforementioned festivities, had a good time and made it to bed around 11:30 for a quick nap before the alarm woke us up at 4am. Our plane to Santiago was to leave at 7am, and we wanted to be sure to leave enough time to work through the system of efficiency we call Peru. I happened to mention to Jami and Allen on the taxi ride to the airport that I don't have my Carnet - my little card that identifies me as a resident of Peru - because Jaime the administrator took it about two weeks ago to get the little renewal sticker that is required every year. We all agree it shouldn't be a problem since I have my passport and they don't always ask for the Carnets anyway. (Shouldn't be a problem...have we learned nothing from living here thus far??????)

We arrived at the Lima airport, relaxed a bit with some coffee from Dunkin Donuts, then headed through the process beginning with paying our taxes, going through immigration and ending with security. By now it is 6am. We successfully hand over our tax money and head towards immigration, swarming the little man in the booth as a trio. He takes our passports and then asks to see our Carnet. It's going to be a problem.

I begin to tell him I don't have mine because it's getting renewed, when Allen shushes me and says, "Don't talk - the less said the better. He just wants to give us the lecture." So I shush while Allen is pouring on the mil dusculpas and yes we do understand. The little man decides that he needs some advice for this huge problem and takes my stuff to the little man next cubby over. This little man is even less happy and not only do we get the lecture again with Allen's humble apologies, but he then informs us that I will not be allowed to travel without my Carnet. I tell him that I knew my number and couldn't he just look up the info in the computer? No, that's not what the computers are for (then what are they for?)

I think this is when I start crying. Jami gets on the phone with Wes, Allen calls Jaime, who was very asleep. It takes a bit for him to understand what is going on but when he finally gets it, he affirms that my Carnet is still in Trujillo with him and he will put it on the first flight out of Trujillo. By now, it's somewhere around 6:30. And we are not happy. I am into heaving sobs by now, Allen is glad she doesn't have a more extensive Spanish vocabulary and Jami has slow sweet tears trickling down as she is working to calm me. They have to leave in order to make their flight. As we part, I have to promise them that I will not go back to Trujillo, but will persevere and come on to Santiago. At this point, I'm ready to find out when the first flight to the U.S. is available.

Allen leaves me with her phone (mine was in Trujllo with problems)and I head down to the LAN airlines ticket counter to see about changing my flight. Jami calls - "How are you?" "I am in line waiting to talk to LAN." "Ok - just don't go home. It will be ok." "Ok - if you say so." I get to the ticket counter and they assure me that I can change it. "What happened again?" Uggg...explaining in Spanish - not a good thing, but I get the point across. I am told that the next flight will leave around 2pm, and I am to come back around 1pm to check in - and they will get my suitcase off the other plane so that it can travel with me.

I guess I should mention that I have been trying to call John since my separation from the girls, but he is not answering his phone. Maybe because it is 6:30 in the morning.

As I am leaving the ticket counter, Wes calls. "How are you?" "I'm not good." He tells me that Jaime is sending the Carnet on Star Peru and when the flight comes in I should go to the Star Peru desk and tell them I have a package that came in on that flight. Ok, I can do that. He leaves me with the "Be strong and courageous. The Lord is with you" speech. Ok. At that moment, I still believed that.

I go get a diet coke and sit down for a few hours of reading and waiting. I keep trying to call John. It's 7:00am and I have talked with just about everybody but John. He still has no idea what is going down.


I will continue later because this is getting long - and I like cliffhangers. :)