Itinerary for today: Get on LAN Flight to Santiago, Chili from Miami. Don’t die of boredom.
Today has been extremely boring. Spending the day in the Miami airport is no fun, and expensive. Fortunately, I was able to find a nice little lounge in the airport hotel to connect from.
Security has been a lot of fun with all the camera equipment I’m carrying, and I also found one of those notes in my checked bag that is was picked for random screening….if I wasn’t in need of an iron before, I definitely need one now! Thank you TSA! Getting through Miami security is going to be a blast! Can’t wait to go through customs on the return.
I had no idea how much my bags weighed till I had to pay $65 to check one. That bag is 61lbs and my carry-on is 42lbs. It really didn’t seem like a lot of stuff; I dwindled things down as much as I could, and even have a little room to spare. Lugging 103lbs from the gate to my hotel room was not fun. The good news is I should have no issues hiking with 30lbs on my back and a few pounds of clothing on my body.
I would have left the airport to spend some time in Miami, but between the extra charges for storage for my duffel bag or the trouble with finding a place to store it I just decided to avoid the hassles (and worries) to suffer some boredom around the airport.
Well, I think I’m going to grab another meal at the “Chili’s too” and think I can safely say things should be more exciting tomorrow. Wheels up at 8:55 PM tonight for Santiago, Chili and we’re down around 6:20 AM tomorrow morning. That is when this trip really begins!
I didn’t get a chance to pull the image above off my camera till now (10:50 AM EST on Oct 16th).
I told you that camera equipment was going to get you into trouble! Through the x-ray scanner it probably looked like some kind of elaborate bomb. Let me know when they give you a full cavity search ; )
Hang in there Alex – hope you have receipts for all of your camera gear – you’ll need ’em coming back through customs (at least it used to be that way).
Can’t wait to see your images from down below.
Cathy
Bon Voyage!
I had the same problem with the TSA idiots on my flight to the South West. Took my camera bags, and wiped chemicals all over my gear to see if I had any explosives in there. Do they not understand that we KNOW how they work, so if we really wanted to bomb something, we would go around them? Idiots. Anywho, I’m super excited to see the start of your trip. Take photos of everything…including the boring stuff. The boring stuff makes for a much better story, almost like a movie!