>The Bubbo wrote:
>> Dave Bugg wrote:

>> Today was better than my flight down. Left at 7, landed in memphis at
>> 9am, had a 5 HOUR layover that got extended another 90 minutes
>> because the plane got delayed in Detroit. Wanna know what there is to
>> do at the Memphis international airport? ****all! that's where there
>> is to do.

Hope I've clipped and accredited this correctly!

Want to know what there is to do at Lima Airport in Peru? SFA,
particularly in the departure "lounge" a misnomer if ever there was
one. We were flying to Cuzco and duly left, flew for almost an hour
and got to the expected arrival time when I noticed out the window
that the scenery looked very familiar, and very close. I'm sure I've
seen that coastline before. Come to think of it, those fishing boats
look awfully close, considering we're flying inland.

We land at an airport, fire engines and ambulances racing alongside
the plane. Was I scared? No, ignorance is bliss and I didn't even
realise there was a problem with our plane. We landed back in Lima
having burned off fuel for an emergency landing. All announcements
were in Spanish and when we traipsed back into the terminal we had no
idea what was happening or had happened. (Later found out there was a
problem with the wings (ailerons, too lazy to look up the spelling,
sorry) of the plane that prevented us from gaining altitude. Saw them
trying to sellotape the wings together before abandoning that idea and
ordering in a new plane).

Hours passed. Our group of 17 friends travelling together were still
wondering what was going on. Being a smoker and the terminal was
non-smoking, I finally rebelled. I marched up to an armed guard (we
don't have many guns in NZ, so we find guns scary) and demanded, in
English, to be released from my confinement so I could go and have a
smoke. No problem. I just had to sign an exit form and raced outside
to smoke up large.

Getting back inside was no problem either. Signed back in, back to
non-smoking and more waiting. We took off six hours later.

Kathy in NZ