I'm currently writing this in Miami airport. While I'm super-excited about getting to Peru, unfortunately the only way to fly to South America (affordably) is to go via Miami.
Continuing with the airline drama theme, when Vanessa and I arrived at Guatemala City airport, the transaction for our flights hadn’t been processed. Despite having a reservation number, we didn’t have a ticket number and therefore couldn’t board (sigh, crappy internet connection). We waited for about an hour to confirm that the previous transaction couldn’t be processed and we needed to purchase the tickets in a separate transaction (WTF?).
On arriving at Miami airport we were greeted by two seemingly endless lines of people waiting to clear immigration. Seriously, this was about 200m from the actual passport checkpoint. People with connecting flights were stressed and there were no staff around to explain what was going on. On a brighter note, we did manage a fleeting glimpse of the famous Florida sunset, very pretty :-)
So, at this point, I need to have a rant about the airport procedures in the US. Firstly, we waited 2 ½ hrs in Miami airport to clear immigration, find our bags, clear customs, security and check our bags again. All this for a connecting flight (with the same airline) straight back out of the country. Why we would need to clear immigration to sit in an airport for a few hours is beyond me.
Secondly, those stupid backscatter radiation machines they use for irradiating people. They don’t work properly, see here and as a result everyone gets a pat-down anyway even after they’ve been through. Sure, you can opt to be completely violated and go for the ‘more through pat-down’ option but the line is huge and you need to listen to the lecture from the staff about ‘how they are completely safe and we use them everyday’, yadda yadda.
Thirdly, at the TSA security check at Honolulu airport, somebody stole my belt. Initially I figured it was an honest mistake, but seriously, I checked back a couple of times and it never turned up. Dammit, I liked that belt. I thought, “no worries, I’ll get another one”. No such luck, no one at Honolulu airport sold belts aside from posh designer labels that would look far too classy with my selection of backpacker outfits (seriously, I don't even come close to dressing well enough in the workplace to justify such an extravagant purchase).
At this point I’m a little concerned, no belt, and there is some ass-crack starting to show. At last at around 2am in Seattle airport, I found this….
As you can see, the prospect of spending the next 5 months wearing a belt that looks like it was made for a 5 year old with an unnatural obsession for ford mustangs causes me to have less than fond memories of TSA.
At the end of the day it’s only a belt, but it could have easily been my laptop, passport, credit card etc. Great job TSA!
Finally, they keep opening my bag while I’m not around (because they can) and not properly closing or even locking it. Yep, cheers for that TSA.
OK, well </rant>
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