Getting that Yellow Card!

Marc here. Priority one for our extra two days in Lima: get that darn yellow fever immunization card (which they, of course, deliver in a yellow card!). After a phone call to an english-speaking physician who calls himself "The Hotel Doc," we had the name of a local clinic that could issue the cards. A short walk to the Good Hope Clinic of Lima and we were immersed in the healthcare system of Peru. They brought out an English speaking nurse who explained that this was a private clinic for Peruvians who could afford to pay for their care. "We have the rich people here," she said. "The poor people have to go to the government hospital," which is, of course, where immunizations and yellow cards are distributed. She told us that it was a one hour taxi ride, on a saturday, of a holiday weekend....it would be just crazy. With that, we made the decision to honor our promise to the girls that they would get some choice in the day's activities so that they get some acknowledgement of their incredible patience. New plan: spend the rest of the morning walking and shopping in Lima and then call our Angel (the taxi driver and guide from the last tour company that handled our Peru part of the trip) and ask him to return us to the airport, where we know we can get the cards. After a very successful shopping adventure, Rebecca gets a craving for.....KFC....the worst part is that there are as many KFC's in Lima as there are Starbucks in the US. Apparently, chicken is very popular and its hard to go even a few blocks without another KFC. Worst-est part: I was actually excited and motivated for some extra crispy fried chicken! Forget local culture at this point. We want home (and in ways that we don't even eat at home!). Other than the MSG they added (and I discovered 30 minutes later! Remind me, in private, to share my other experience with ingesting MSG in Peru :) ), it was great. Angel picked us up, drove us back to the airport (about an hour), and told us that he had already called the airport clinic, spoke with the doctor, explained our situation, and she was ready to issue the cards, Thank you, Angel! Sure enough, it took just 15 or 20 minutes of bureaucracy and we had our coveted yellow cards. After lots of celebratory photos, we said goodbye to Angel (until the morning run to the airport for Costa Rica). In keeping with the American cultural food theme, we weren't hungry enough for dinner so we compromised with a walk down the street for Pinkberry frozen yogurt. Yeah. Angel demanded that we get to the airport 3 hours ahead of our 10:45 am flight to Costa Rica. Yadda. Yadda. Yadda. Good thing we did! Lima has only one international airport serving nearly 11 million residents. It was PACKED. We got to the ticket counter to get our cherished boarding passes only to have another incredible painful surreal moment: Ticket agent: "You only have two tickets to Costa Rica. There aren't any tickets for Rebecca or Shayna." Marc: "What?" Ticket Agent: "Only two tickets have been issued. You only have two tickets on this flight." Marc: to himself, holy crap. Within a few minutes, we were able to confirm that we did, indeed, have four reservations, just not four tickets. That meant that the airline needed to convert the other two reservations into actual (ok electronic) tickets. BUT...since the tickets were issued by COPA airlines (boo...hiss...) and we were flying Avianca, we needed to go to Copa....except that COPA didn't open until 10 am (even at the airport!) and our flight left at 10:40 am (not enough time!) Plan B: Have the Avianca ticket agent call the Copa call center and have them take care of it. (In order to get this far, the avianca agent sent me running upstairs to the admin. offices of Copa, where I barged into a private office with a sign on the door "do not enter." Heck with that, I entered. After shuffling me out the door, the guy said he couldn't help me. Surprise. Surprise). Fortunately, Avianca (yeah!) did help..called Copa call center..explained our story...got put on hold..... on hold.... on hold... for 15 minutes... for 30 minutes... for an hour... for 90 minutes..... Then, CELEBRATION! The computer revealed that the Copa agent had processed our two tickets. Within seconds, they handed us our boarding passes and we raced to the gate,(but first securing and customs) arriving 3 minutes after they were supposed to start boarding. Fortunately, they were running a little late and gave us 20 minutes to spend our last Peruvian soles.. Thank you, Angel, for getting us to the airport 3 hours early! There was a Costa Rican youth group on the flight with us. They cheered when the plane landed in San Jose. No one was cheering louder than us!