Birding Hell: We soon might not be allowed to set foot outside our hotel….
Actually today we decided to try walking the Malecon, which is the only place to bird here, and we were left alone.
So that was a major mood boost. I do not think we could do anything like that in Lima right now. There are advantages to being up here.
So here are today’s fun non-birding updates:
1. Another American that got left off the manifest, as we did, for yesterday’s flight, has Type I diabetes and needs to get home ASAP. He showed me an email he got from the Embassy today that basically said: “You were supposed to be on the manifest, but somehow your name was not added. We are sorry. We are looking into what happened.”
2. Although I was explicitly told not to go to the airport since we were not on the manifest, at least one woman did just that, and was allowed on. Good for her. I also got confirmation from someone on the flight that a third of the seats were empty. Yet there are probably still a hundred of us trying to get out of Iquitos.
3. Today the Embassy released a message and acknowledged that they are flying non-full planes back to the US and turning away desperate people at the same time. Why? Because accommodating latecomers would violate Transportation Security Requirements.
Frusteating. This is an unprecedented emergency, but they cannot be flexible and simply verify your passport, pass you through security, take your temperature, and get you home.
So we sit and wait and listen to the Great Kiskadees. They say “Get them home! Get them home!” Or something else, but this is a Family-friendly Blog so I will not write what I think they are really saying. Kiskadees know some pretty bad words.
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