Adventures in Lima: Getting There

So a few weeks ago I attended a book fair in Lima, Peru. I was asked to go by the State Department; apparently I’d gotten good feedback from the folks in Uruguay a year or two ago. So when this Lima Book Fair, a co-production of the Lima government and the State Department, appeared on the horizon, I was suggested by the State Department as a guest (along with several other folks) and it seems the people in Lima were really enthused by that. Of course, since they all read translations of my work, I’m figuring it’s more of an endorsement of the translator’s skill than anything else.

Anyway, as I’ve learned with my multiple adventures getting into and out of Canada, nothing comes easily for me when it involves air travel.



In this instance, I was to fly from Long Island to Philadelphia, where I could catch a 1 PM flight down to Atlanta. It would get me in at 3:20, plenty of time to change to the 5:20 to Lima.

So I get to Philadelphia a good three hours ahead of my flight. I check the boards. My 1 PM flight is now delayed by half an hour…and then an hour…and then an hour and forty-five minutes. I’m hemorrhaging connection time and anyone who’s ever changed in Atlanta can tell you that’s not always an easy endeavor. I go to the Delta desk and inform them that I’m ready; why, as per their commercials, aren’t they? I’m informed a mechanical problem has been discovered on the equipment which is currently IN Atlanta and has yet to take off (turns out the windshield was cracked. Wonderful.) So she rebooks me onto the 2:15 PM which I’m told will get me into Atlanta at 4:30 PM. My two hour window has just been trimmed to fifty minutes. Tighter, but not impossible. I check a little further and discover that we’re going to be landing at the furthest possible gate in Terminal A, and naturally–naturally–my connection is going to be at the furthest possible gate at Terminal E (almost the furthest possible terminal).

I call my contact at the State Department and bring her up to speed. If I miss the flight out of Atlanta, then I’m stuck in Atlanta overnight because the next flight to Lima is 24 hours later. She says she’s going to do two things: First, ask Delta (since I’m connecting Delta-to-Delta) if they can hold my connecting flight. And second, she’s going to try and arrange for one of those electric golf carts to speed me along. The cart can’t get me from terminal to terminal–only the damned train can do that–but at least it can get me to the train point faster than on foot.

Some minutes later she calls me back to inform me that Delta refuses to hold the flight, but that they will do their level best to make sure there’s an electric cart waiting for me.

So I board the 2:15. We pull away from the gate.

And we wait. Because of weather somewhere along the route. We don’t take off for half an hour, so that further erodes my connection time.

Once we’re en route, a flight attendant comes over to me. She has a clipboard. “Mr. David?” she says.

I’m in the middle seat being crushed between two people who are both heavier than I am. “Yes.”

She says, “I’m happy to tell you that we can absolutely guarantee you a wheelchair when we arrive.”

“Ah. Okay, well…that’s very kind of you,” I say, “but I don’t need a wheelchair. What I need is an electric cart.”

“Well we can’t promise you a cart, but I can guarantee you a wheelchair.”

OKay, clearly there’s been a misunderstanding. “I don’t need a wheelchair,” I said. “I can walk. What I need, for the purpose of speed, is an electric cart.”

“We don’t know where the carts will be at any given time. But I can definitely arrange for a wheelchair.”

I glance at the guys on either side of me, because I think I’m making myself clear, but obviously I’m not. They shrug. I turn back to her.

“Listen,” I say, “I’m ambulatory. I’m capable of locomotion. I can walk. I can run. What concerns me is that I can’t run fast enough to make my connection. Every minute counts, and if running the length of the terminal takes me fifteen minutes, and riding in the cart takes three, that could be the difference between making my flight or being stuck overnight in Atlanta. I need the cart not for comfort, but for speed. The wheelchair will not only do me no good, but it would actually hamper my ability to make my connection. Is that clear?”

“Yes, absolutely,” she says with a Stepford Wife smile. “The problem is that we can’t guarantee you a cart. However…we definitely CAN make sure you have a wheelchair.”

Okay, NOW she’s just trying to make me lose my mind. “Look,” I said, very patiently, “unless the guy pushing the wheelchair is an Olympic sprinter, and his hobby is wheelchair races, the wheelchair will be worse than useless. I need to make my flight and we’re running half an hour late…”

“Oh, we’ll be fine,” she says confidently. “The Captain will make up some of the time. We’ll land at 4:45 at the latest, so that will make up fifteen minutes.”

“Right, and when we do, they’ll tell us there’s no gate for us, so we’ll wait another fifteen minutes for a gate.”

“I’m sure that won’t happen,” she says with certainty. “And besides, because of the weather, your connecting flight will probably be delayed.”

“No,” I say with a heavy sigh, having been down this road before. “It’ll leave right on time. And it would be really nice if there could be an electric cart waiting for me to help me get to it.”

“Can’t promise it, but,” and she was so CHIPPER, that was the killer, “I’ll make sure there’s a wheelchair waiting for you.”

I stare at her. “That would be great,” I tell her.

She walks away and before I can say anything to my seatmates, they immediately say, “It’s not you. It’s her.”

So we get to the airport. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is the captain speaking. Although we have landed, they don’t have our gate ready, so it’ll just be a few more minutes…”

Fifteen minutes later I emerge at the far end of Terminal A. Five PM straight up. No cart. There’s a guy about ten years my senior, ninety pounds, waiting with a wheelchair. I run past him. For all I know he’s still there.

I sprint as fast as I can the maximum distance from where I was to the trains. A cart rolls past me shepherding half a dozen laughing teenagers. If they had one neck, I’d hack it through.

It’s ten past five as I get onto the train. It buzzes along and I’m running up the escalator. As I emerge on the top, it’s 5:15 and there is absolutely no way I’m going to be able to get to the departure gate at the other end in time. I glance around. No cart. A random attendant walks past with a wheelchair. Despairing, I glance at the departure screen for my flight. It says, BOARDING. It’s leaving bang on time. Of course. Then I notice it says “GATE CHANGE.” If it tells me it’s leaving from Terminal A I’m going to blow my brains out. I look at the new gate.

E9.

My head whips around. I’m standing in front of E9. God has decided to cut me a break. I’m right there but they’re getting ready to close the door.

“Hold it!” I shout as I sprint toward the desk. “Hold it, I’m right here!” I nearly collapse onto the desk, clutching my ticket. My biggest fear is that they’ve given away my seat.

The woman at the desk looks like a dead ringer for the flight attendant. She cocks her head at me like a poodle and says, “Are you on this flight?”

No, not yet, y’idjit, I’m standing here with you asking me stupid questions while that guy over there is getting ready to button it up. I settle for, “Yes. My connecting flight ran late. I had to run.”

“Oh,” she says. She takes the ticket, does whatever she’s supposed to do, hands it back to me. As I stagger to the door, the last one onto the plane, she calls after me, “If this ever happens again, you should arrange for an electric cart.”

PAD