Traveling to Lima from Birmingham

The alarm jolted us awake at 3 am. Really… and on a Saturday morning. It was less than six hours earlier that we had gone to bed. Guess we asked for this. I texted my brother who was gracious enough to take us to the airport to make sure he was on the way. A quick bath, shave and last-minute tasks – packing toiletries and charging cables, adjusting the thermostat and shutting off the water – and we’re off at about 3:40 am.

At the time of day, there’s very little traffic especially in Birmingham. We made the airport in under 30 minutes which is typically a much longer trip. Why did they want us there so early? Nobody else was there except for others like us who follow the rules.

At the kiosk, we were offered to volunteer for a later flight in exchange for a minimum of $200. Not having done that before, I waited until we could talk to an agent. After all, we were flying United and I didn’t want to be the next person dragged off a plane like that other poor dude. The agent gave us a few directions but most importantly said that we weren’t obligated to any change until the gate agent made an offer. We completed check-in, and the new offer was for $300 each. I was pretty excited about that; if the three of us could still get to Lima on Saturday and pocket $900, then why not?

We grabbed a quick breakfast and waited. How could we pay $15 at the airport for food yet dinner the night before was $11? When the gate agent asked for volunteers for later flights, she offered $500 but only needed one person. Then it it climbed to $700 and a free flight voucher but still only one ticket needed! Are you kidding me? I didn’t want to send my wife and daughter to Peru for me to catch a later flight so I had to let that offer pass. If they had been able to take all three of us then the $2100 would have pretty much paid for everything we spent on this trip already! Maybe volunteers will be needed in Houston or Panama City – we’ll know soon enough. But I need to get in the business of finding these oversold routes, make some mileage runs to put activity on my frequent flyer accounts and gather up some loot along the way. It could make for a profitable day.

We boarded the Embraer 145, operated by United Express. When my 5’2” wife says “this is a little plane,” that’s no exaggeration. I think we had about 75 folks on the flight and it indeed was full. I do like these small jets as they seem to be quieter than the 737 models that we commonly fly with Southwest. The flight attendant came through and handed out Savory Mix (appears to be standard fare on United economy) and “Stroopwafel.” I’ll save it for later, skip the drink as well and get a nap. Glad to have my neck pillow.

We made it to Houston International on time. It was just three weeks before that Hurricane Harvey slammed the area with over three feet of rain. I thought at the time of those airport closures that if our trip had been timed otherwise we would have been impacted by all that. For all the flights I’ve taken, it’s my first time at IAH. On taxi to the terminal, we had to stop and the pilot announced that we couldn’t proceed until the six safety belts that were unfastened were buckled. I looked down and inspected my belt. Can’t for the life of me see any sensors or electronics. Surely the pilot wouldn’t fib to us, would he?

The hour and a half in Houston was uneventful. We caught a few Pokémon and topped off the charge on our cell phones. Before boarding, we picked up lunch at Cibo Express (the muffuletta wasn’t bad) and a couple of Boar’s Head sandwiches. Onboard the 737 to Panama, I thought it was interesting that DirecTV was offered for $5.99 for the flight, but after about an hour into the flight a message popped up that DirecTV was ending due to leaving their coverage area. I hadn’t purchased it, but I am a big college football fan and being that we flew on Saturday I could just as well paid to watch a game and would have been ticked. That should be more clear at the time of purchase.

Our flight arrived on time in Panama City and we technically stepped into a new country for us, though we aren’t claiming it. We spent just over an hour here waiting for our next flight. As for the airport at PTY, it was fairly large and very busy for a Saturday afternoon. Lots of specialty shops and duty-free was available, perhaps more than I expected.

The last leg was with Copa Airlines. I’d always heard of Copa as the on-time airline. They didn’t disappoint this time around. We had a nice, uneventful flight down to Lima. Total time was about 3 hours and in-flight amenities were pretty good. They played the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie on drop-down screens (there were none in the seatbacks). Headsets were offered to enjoy the movie or other audio channel but it was in SPANISH. Ashley said it was funny hearing Captain Jack Sparrow talk in Spanish. They also served a hot snack dinner consisting of a small beef burrito, a salad and a pack of Oreo cookies. The nicest part was that everything was included with the ticket price.

On arrival in Lima, we sped through immigration quickly. There were agents and every lane was open although it looked like we were the only flight arriving. The airport was nice and clean and we got our two pieces of checked luggage. One had been crushed flat on one end, but being that the body is plastic I was able to pop it back in place. Nothing else was damaged, although it was easy to see that TSA had been into the luggage to inspect. In fact, they left us a little love note. Thankfully, everything was there.

We found our driver around 8:00 pm and made it to our apartment by 9:00. We didn’t see much in terms of sights because it was dark. I’ll do an extensive review of our AirBNB stays and hosts separately. So although it was a long day, we’ve made it to our fifth continent and twentieth country! More to come about our first day in Lima in our next post.