Taking Flight...November18

The flights were fine, all of them, but the chaos at the airport in Miami was not amazing but just weird. After a quick claim stop at the baggage carousel I thought I had plenty of time to wander around the airport, maybe have dinner, and maybe even meet up with others from our tour group. I am traveling with SmarTours and it is the first time I have done this kind of a trip. Most things are included but some meals will be on our own. It was a couple of hours before I met my fellow travelers.

After collecting my bag I went to check in for my next flight and recheck my bag after customs. I found the place to check in for LAN flight 2507 to Lima, Peru and got in line. I have never been in a line like that if there wasn't a roller coaster at the end of it. No joke. The queue line wound around to the counter where it took fifteen minutes or more to process one passenger. I finally made it to the third loop of the line when an employee came through and took everyone out of the line if we were going to Lima. They wanted to ticket only the Chile flight. After about one hour and fifteen minutes of being in line to get only about half way we started over in a new line that was not allowed to enter the stanchions until 8:00! If they had told us that before I would have been happier. Once we did enter the line they held us up again because they were still working on the Chile flight.

 A great part of the problem was the enormous amount of luggage. People literally had as many as ten bags to check in...at $116 per extra case. Not for a family but per person in each family. And then of course two carry ons each. Incredible piles of stuff. A lot of the bags were green saran wrapped...$15 each...and marked as security proved baggage. I asked the young man who, after a total of two and a half hours of my waiting in line, finally checked me in about all the bags. I thought maybe people worked here and were going home for the winter. No, they come to the states to shop! The flights are relatively cheap and the prices are so significantly better that they shop for everything. So the HP boxes weren't just used to make packing easy, they were new computers! Televisions, baby equipment, and clothes and shoes galore. They fly in with the two carry on bags and buy enough suitcases as they buy the other things with which to fill them!

The security wrap was especially popular for those continuing on to Buenos Aries. Those bags would have no reason to be searched in Santiago and therefore less likely to have property stolen in the airport in either Chile or Argentina! Of course some of our neighbors to the south had been to Disney World and were lugging along giant Mickeys and Minnies as well. So, dear friends, the U.S. economy is booming in South Florida and the balance of trade is in our favor!