Jumping ahead in time, when my passport arrived on Tuesday, February the whatever it was, I was ready to hop on a plane right then.  However, I had four days of school left so decided I would fly out of Lima on Saturday.  Also, my hotel was going to have to change my room on Friday to a room on the third floor.  I knew I could manage that for one night (there are not as many elevators in Lima as you would think), but not two, and anyway, they had no rooms after that, so it was either fly out Saturday or schlep my bags to another hotel only to fly out in the next few days.  Also, I wasn’t feeling great, and somehow I had it in my head that if I just left Lima my physical problems would disappear.

Naturally, being the thoughtful planner I am, I gave my travel agent very little notice that I needed a flight for Saturday, but we began the informational emailing back and forth with details.  Friday morning she found a flight for me, but I was at school, so didn’t get the information until late in the afternoon.   Won’t bore you with all the details of the next hour, but suffice it to say I paid my massive hotel bill with no problem.  Emma, however, ran into a tiny little snag on the flight:  my bank denied my debit card.  Well, I knew there was plenty of money in there, but I double checked and double checked and checked again just to make sure.  Yup.  MY MONEY was there all right, I just couldn’t get to it.

Ten minutes until the office closed.  I emailed my trusty friend, Walter, who luckily was available and got right on the phone to my banker, who by this time knows both of us quite well.  Five minutes to five and still hadn’t heard from the bank.  Three minutes to five and my travel agent thought of a solution.  I said go, and finally, I had a ticket, although it wouldn’t be confirmed until late that night.   Walter sends me a copy of the email he wrote to my banker.

I was feeling so relieved in the morning when I got my flight confirmation I felt like celebrating, but instead I got in the cab that was waiting for me and made for the airport.  Now let me just say that I spend very little time in a wheelchair, but in an airport I definitely require one, especially on international flights, as there is a significant amount of time standing in lines and waiting.  And waiting.  And waiting.  Now I can walk, more or less, but it requires frequent sitdowns and rest periods, and I’d still be sitting in the airport if I hadn’t chosen airport assistance.  So the cab drops me off in a parking lot a good distance from the terminal.  I’m a tiny bit freaked, but then I see a wheelchair coming toward me.

Ah, yay!  We get my bags arranged, sort of, with most of my “stuff” stuffed in my lap.  With some little rearranging, I was able to see well enough.  Enter the airport and the wheelchair guy says that’s as far as he goes.   We’re not anywhere near the counter.  Of course, I have a compulsion to tip.  Where does that come from?  He’s an airline employee and is probably not supposed to take tips.  However, I get my little coin purse out and give him what I think  is a surprisingly generous tip for someone who is dumping me at the curb, so to speak.  He looks at it and says, and I quote:  “Pequeno”.  There should be an accent mark on that n, just in case you think I haven’t learned any Spanish.  Translation:  Little.  Tiny.  So I dig back in my coin purse and give him every last piece of change that I have.  He was still grumbling when he left.

On to the counter I go.  When I get there, I am literally trembling from back pain, but the counter encounter (yeah, I know I’m doing that, but I can’t help myself) goes off without a hitch, until the agent tells me that I have to walk to the end of the hall and around the corner to pick up my wheelchair.  I guess the look on my face was enough, because next thing I know, they’re calling for a wheelchair to come pick me up.

Finally, I’m off.  Wheelchair careening crazily down hallways, in elevators, down more hallways, through immigration, where I held my breath in fear that I didn’t have the correct documentation.  Finally, a stamp in my passport and we’re good to go.  More careening through hallways jammed with people.  Wheelchair guy is surprisingly similar to taxistas (taxi drivers – hey, if you want to travel to a Spanish-speaking country, just bring me along), or maybe not surprisingly at all.  From now on, I’ll just call him taxista, for ease of reference.  Well, really so I don’t have to keep typing wheelchair guy.  We approach right on the heels of pedestrians, and he whispers permiso, permiso, and most of them get out of our way.  We get really, really close first, though.

Oh, I forgot to mention one tiny little detail.  Tagging along at the rear of this little two-person entourage is some guy.  I have no idea why he’s with us, as I never really get a look at him, but nevertheless, with us he is.  At one point the taxista stops and announces VEEP LOUNGE.  Pretty sure I don’t belong there, but I guess he’s telling the guy behind us, who for some reason just continues along with us.  I found out later that he couldn’t see well enough to get in there by himself, and it was obvious that Mr. Taxista wasn’t taking him in there.

Finally, we reach the gate area.  I say area.  We are within eyesight of the gate, but pretty far away when the taxista says I have to wait in the chairs there.  When I ask him why we can’t go closer to the gate, he insists that the rule is that wheelchairs stay in that area and that someone will come get me for the flight.  Yeah, right.  I can see way up ahead a pole that sticks up so wheelchairs can be easily found, although mine of course doesn’t have one.  Nevertheless, I know that indeed, wheelchairs can be located right at the front close to the gate.

Suddenly I realize I have no money for a tip.  (Again, airline employee who is probably not supposed to take tips anyway, but no, I have suddenly GOT to tip him to avoid embarrassment.  So I convince him to wheel me back to the little restaurant we just passed, order a sandwich I don’t want in order to break the remaining large Peruvian bill in my wallet, and then GIVE HIM ALL THE CHANGE.  Probably about ten dollars, whereupon he promptly leaves, practically running to get out of there.  Where our third person has gone remains to be seen.

So my sandwich arrives, but there is no busboy or anyone who can push me back to the gate.  Now, you might think that I could just wheel myself over there, and indeed I tried, but with my heavy sweater, which has a tendency to misbehave and drag all over everywhere, my laptop, my hat, my purse and my rather large carryon bag, I have no hands free to make that wheelchair move.  When I’m ignored long enough, however, I do manage to maneuver myself into the aisle, one hand at a time, blocking all traffic.  That was really not my intent, but I just can’t manage to straighten the darn thing out.  The waitress comes up and demands that I move, and when I tell her that I can’t, she suddenly decides that she can do it herself.  Pushy old American lady.  And I did NOT give her a tip.

So I’m sitting there minding my own business when the guy who was with us before appears and plunks himself down across from me.  Turns out the guy is blind, which is why he was with us.  So we chat and wait, chat and wait.  People board for a flight to Quito that is not ours, so we sit and wait some more.  Finally, time is getting a little short, and in a leap of faith I abandon everything but my purse and walk over to the departures board, only to see that our flight has been changed to another gate, a looooong way away.  Of course the blind guy had been told that someone would pick him up in the event of a change,  but that didn’t happen.  It’s just lucky we were there together, as he would have had no way of knowing the change had occurred.

What to do, what to do.  Of course the obvious solution was:  The blind pushing the lame.

Yes, that’s a white cane.  Picture it.  Me guiding as he pushes.  Anyway, we made it to the correct gate pretty much just in time to start boarding.  Success.  I was never so happy for a flight to take off.  I believe the other people were also quite happy to be boarding, as Nataly and I kept breaking out in hysterical laughter.

Arrival in Quite was uneventful, although it was quite cloudy and a bit tumbly.  My taxista this time was very thoughtful and actually took me to the money changing booth so I could pay my taxicab.  Went to pick the luggage up, and not a bag was on the carousel.  Everybody had already picked up their bags up.  Suddenly two guys appear – my blind friend and the person who brought him over to me.  Apparently his taxista wasn’t so kind and abandoned him in the immigration process.  We wait for a few minutes, and I think I hear my name, but no, that can’t be.  Oops, yes it was.  I was to report to lost and found immediately.  Turns out that they pulled our bags for us!  How nice!   A happy ending to a long story.  Took a taxi to my hotel where I didn’t even unpack before hitting the bed in an exhausted heap.  Ah, Quito.  I do love it here.