Day #82 - Raleigh to Cusco, Peru

Friday, June 4th

This may have been one of the toughest travel days I've ever had - but as the same time, it was awesome.

10:30am -- We get picked up at my buddy Greg's house by one of his coworkers in a huge SUV. We head over to pick up our other 2 friends - Liam and my new friend Kim (Liam's girlfriend). We make it to the airport around 11:15am.

We were scheduled on a 1:30pm flight from Raleigh to Miami. We immediately find out that this flight is delayed about 1.5 hours. No problem - we found a lunch spot in the airport. It was great. We caught up with old times, a couple beers flowing, all good. It was getting to be about 1:30pm now. Greg decided to go and check the boards to see how are delay was coming along. He came back with these unfortunate words: "The flight is cancelled". This is not something you ever want to see/hear in an airport. This means instant chaos. As we all 4 are fairly experienced travelers, upon hearing this news, we were up with bags in hand in about 2 minutes, with our minds turning to think of our next move.

We first went to the gate. Already about a 20 deep line. Greg and Kim got on the phones to American Airlines. They both haggled with different options as Liam and I listened. We could have rebooked from Raleigh with 2 stops before Miami. One option through Atlanta and one option through New York. Neither of these sounded great. We had an 11:55pm international flight out of Miami to Lima, Peru we needed to make. Having 2 stops is just too risky. We were told that there was a direct flight from Charlotte, NC to Miami leaving later in the afternoon. Charlotte is about a 2.5 hour drive from Raleigh. We thought about it. Yes - let's do that. We'll get a rental car and drive to Charlotte to catch the 7:05pm flight arriving in Miami at 9:10pm. This was the earliest we could get there with all the options we were given. The 2 stop options would be closer to 10pm (with any delays - we wouldn't make the international portion).

Greg picks up the rental car. Liam and I go get our bags that were previously checked down in baggage claim. Kim waits in line to check out reimbursements for our rental car. The reason for the flight cancellation was listed as 'mechanical' on the board. This clearly represents an Airline problem - we should get compensated for our efforts. Even if the rental car is not reimbursed, between the 4 of us, it shouldn't be a big deal.

We make great time to Charlotte - arriving right at 5pm. Once inside, we find out that the flight to Miami was delayed. The departure time is now showing 7:50pm. We're still OK. Only bad problem, we now must check our bags all the way through to Cusco instead of picking them up in Miami and rechecking. This may sound like it would be the preferred option. Not so much. We're flying American to Miami and then LAN Airlines from Miami to Lima, then Lima to Cusco. Even though LAN is a partner with American - it's never good to merge the 2 if not necessary. We were even told as much by our travel agent. We had no other option because it would be too tight of a connection in Miami.

We had about 1.5 hours of downtime. The flight keeps slipping later and later. We finally board and hit the run-way around 8:30pm. Wow - this is going to be close.

They wouldn't give us our LAN international tickets in Charlotte. We were told that we would need to pick these up in Miami - but we could stay within the secure area, so it shouldn't take long. We land in Miami around 10:30pm. By the time we finally deboard - it's nearing 10:45pm - we have basically an hour. We get on this bus which takes us to the terminal. Once we got off this thing - we try to figure out where LAN airlines was. We're told it's Terminal J. Great -- this is many terminals away. Liam takes off in a jog. We all follow. We're told now that we must go out of security to get our tickets. It's 11pm. Do we have enough time to get our tickets, wait in the security line, and still make the 11:55pm flight?

We ran for a good 1/2 -3/4 of a mile in the airport. I'm 12 hours post illness, I have to keep up because we're on the same tickets and need to check in at the same time. Solid - we finally make it to LAN check-in. We get our boarding tickets. It's going to come down to the security line if we're going to make it. Lucky break. Only a few people. We got through security in 10 minutes and made it to the gate at 11:35pm - 20 minutes before take-off. We all fell into our chairs on the plane. 14 hours after we started our travels - we were in the air headed to Lima, Peru.

I'll quit with today. Even though this was not preferred how today turned out - it was still alot of fun travelling with friends again. At this point - I was feeling good and very positive. Things were about to change tomorrow morning.