Just after 3pm, I leave my apartment in Quito’s southern neighborhood, La Marin, and walk up to the Ecovia – the bright red trolley-bus that runs along the North-South corridor through the center of the city. Changing trolleys, I ride for about an hour before arriving at Rio Coca, the northernmost station where I switch buses once again for the bright green Rio Coca bus which takes me 50km to the west, where the new Mariscal Sucre Airport resides on a giant, flat, plateau.

I’m making my way from the high mountain valley where Quito, Ecuador is nestled between snow-capped volcanoes, to the coastal, sand-swept desert town of Trujillo, Peru to compete in the Media Maraton de Trujillo (a 13.1 mile half-marathon race, one of the most competitive in the country).

At the airport, I’m checked in and through security in a matter of minutes. I sit down to eat my dinner but, hearing a LAN flight to Guayaquil being called, I decide to see if I can hop on. My flight doesn’t leave for another two hours, so the earlier flight would give me two more hours to rest during my overnight layover in Guayaquil. The woman at the counter is young and flirtatious; she smiles as me as she plunks away on her 400 year old computer and simply crosses out the flight number on my boarding pass and writes in the new one. Thanks.

The last time I went to Guayaquil, I took a bus from Quito which took over 9 hours. In 35 minutes, we’ve touched down and in another 10, I’m walking off the plane.

It’s now about 8pm and I can’t even go through international security for my flight to Lima until 4am – eight hours away. Too early to sleep, I decide to do a bit of work after finding the illusive free wifi/outlet combo before trying to rest.

For those who have never had to spend a night in an airport, there’re a few challenges you might not foresee.

First comes the most basic question of where would be a good place to try to sleep. Turns out that while the modern and shiny quality of an airport may appear sterile and clean, it generally implies hard surfaces, which don’t make ideal beds. Most seats, benches, floors, are all tile, metal, or plastic. I’m lucky to find a nice leather booth at a down-stairs eatery which (judging by the several other people already sprawled out) doesn’t seem to mind us homeless-folk making ourselves cozy.

Second, airports are loud. The Guayaquil airport, for instance, thought that all of its inhabitants would be thrilled to listen to the same half-hour music loop on repeat all day and all night. I think I may have flashbacks if I ever hear “Hey Jude” again while trying to fall asleep. Earplugs can only do so much.

Finally, airports are really, really cold. Maybe it was just this airport, since Guayaquil is usually very hot and humid, even at night, but inside it was freezing. With no sleeping bag and nothing more than my track-jacket and a t-shirt to wear, I shiver on the bench, cursing the air-condition and trying to will my body to generate more heat. Unable to sleep I walk around outside, trying to get warm, and come back to my spot, donning every article of clothing I have (four t-shirts), wrapping one around my head as a make-shift scarf.

It doesn’t work. I’ll doze off for a few minutes but it’s too cold to stay still. Around 3am, I wake up and decide to get some work done before going through security and migration at 4am.

This, I think, should be pretty low key. I clear security with no problem and proceed into migration, where I should official exit Ecuador. It turns out that the agent giving me my exit stamp decided that my passport was too old and damaged for her approval.

“But I’ve been using this passport for years,” I explain. “I know it has some minor water-damage, but I’ve crossed many borders (including this one), with no problems.”

She’s having none of it. She really doesn’t even want to stamp me out of Ecuador, but I promise and beg and she shakes her head. I guess I’m not her problem anymore. As I gather my things to leave, she says “well, you’re going to have a problem with that when you try to get into Perú.”

Between having been awake for 24+ hours and having already dealt with a visa-scare in the previous week, I am now having a mild panic attack as I walked past the rows of duty-free perfumes and bottles of Chivas and Johnny Walker (no, thank you, but I would not like a free sample of Margarita at 4:30am). I’m out of Ecuador at this, but I now don’t know if I’ll be able to get into Perú (or back into Ecuador if they turned me away). I’m stuck in international limb. It’s a huge unknown as just have no idea what they do in a situation like this. Do I get a phone call? Do they detain me? Do I get forced to buy (what would be an extremely expensive) ticket back to the US?

I don’t like thinking about it, but it seemed to dominate my thoughts. I start to accept the idea of being deported back to the US as an inevitability and try to think of the silver lining. Yeah, it would be nice to see my family and friends tomorrow… Still, even as I board the incredibly nice LAN jet (2-3-2 seats, touch screen TVs in every headset), I’m even more uptight than my usual boarding of a plane. (For those who don’t know, I hate flying and am rendered a sniveling baby when it comes to air-travel).

I try to sleep on the flight – I should sleep on the flight – and it almost works. I doze off for a few minutes and forget about being anxious. Then, just as it fades out of my consciousness, I come to and It jolts back into my mind and I can’t get it out of my head. I start to practice what I’m going to say to the passport control agent when he tells me I can’t enter the country. “But sir, please, I’m just here for a marathon! Just a few day, please!”

I walk off the plane and have to catch my breath and calm my racing hear (despite being in the oxygen rich sea-level of Lima). I follow the herd, trying to place myself in the middle of our flight so that the agents will be rushing us through. I find a few fellow foreigners and decide to try to blend into their group. As we got to the end of the seemingly infinite labyrinth of hallways and are spewed out into the large passport control area, I cringe. There’s no one else here. No line. I’m up.

I try my best to just the agents, looking for someone who looked nice, maybe young, or maybe older and motherly. Someone who’d take pity on a baby-faced gringo.

I’m gestured up finally and pointed to the one guy I’d prayed not to have. He looks annoyed, tired. Maybe this is good, though. Maybe, he won’t want any hassle either.

I hand him my passport and immigration card. He barely even looks at the passport, scans it into his computer and continues to plunk around at his keyboard. Next, he does what everyone seems to do when they’re dealing with my passport. He flips through the pages and furrows his brow. Why does this kid have so many entry and exit stamps from Perú and Ecuador?

My passport is almost full (which is, incidentally, why I had just applied for a new one in Quito) due to my innumerable trips through Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Colombia (not to mention Jamaica, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic) over the past seven years that my passport has been with me. This always seems to raise eyebrows and right now, that’s the last thing I want.

Then, the moment comes. He finds the blank page, picks up the stamp and in one swift motion, the satisfying mechanical sound of the stamp welcomes me back. I’m in.

I end up making it through passport control and customs in record time – 33 minutes from the time the wheels touch down on the runway to the moment I pick up my backpack after passing it through the customs x-ray and walk out into the bright airport. With another long layover, I decide (after breathing a huge sigh of relief given the fact that I’ve finally made it into Peru) to relax for a bit and then try to go for an easy jog.

One of the troubles of being a solo-traveler/runner is what to do with your bag while running. I’ve done a lot of running in airports, but most of the time I’ve been lucky to have company with me who (as normal members of society) don’t want to go running up and down airport terminals and would rather sit and keep watch over our stuff. Particularly in Lima, I’m almost always with Nic, the STRIVErs, or other friends, so this is the first time that I’m out of luck.

I ask around and – much to my pleasant surprise – find that there’s a place that will watch your luggage for 4 soles/hour (about $1.30). I decide it’s well worth it after a stiff and stressful day, so I leave my backpack and head out into the typically grey Lima morning.

Callao, the neighborhood where the airport is located, is actually just north of Lima. The sub-urban sprawl is not beautiful and the streets are congested with people and cars and commerce. Still, I make my way up a central bike-lane that Nic found this year and I’m glad to be outside. I’m stiff and achy and breathing in the fumes of a million diesel engines, but it feels good to move.

Back in the airport, I still have a few hours to kill and I occupy most of that time eating a ceremonial Big Mac (a Lima-Airport-Tradition) and trying to find a place with both free wifi and electrical outlets (an apparent holy-grail of even the most modern airports).

Nearly six hours after leaving customs, I carry my bag back through security and it’s time to board the last of three planes in my long journey to Trujillo. With the worry about my passport out of my mind (or at least postponed for a while), I’m able to relax and actually doze off on the brief flight over the coastal desert.

I wake up and look down over the Pacific – the dark blue water textured like the worn surface of an old leather sofa. Suddenly, the desert appears below us and the wheels hit the tarmac. Twenty-five hours later. We made it.

Final “Travel Splits”
Walk to Ecovia: 12:25
Ecovia 1: 8:45 (21:10)
Ecovia 2: 24:24 (45:36)
Airport Bus: 1:30:44 (2:16:21)
Waiting in Quito Airport: 1:10:52 (3:27:13)
Boarding Plane #1: 36:37 (4:03:50)
Flight UIO to GYE: 35:36 (4:39:27)
Overnight layover in Guayaquil: 10:21:37 (15:01:04)
Flight GYE to LIM: 1:32:13 (16:33:18)
Layover in Lima: 7:12:12 (23:45:30
Flight LIM to TRU: 55:16 (24:01:46)
Walk to Bus station: 34:09 (24:35:55)
Bus to downtown Trujillo: 44:32 (25:19:27)

 

To be continued…