Five Minutes Can Cost $3,000 in Peru
Friday, March 11, 2011 at 5:03PM It could be worse. A lot worse, I thought, as I dined on an excellent steak and a glass of a Cabernet Sauvignon at Vivaldino, a fine restaurant in the Larco Mar complex on the cliffs of the beautiful Miraflores district of Lima (picture I snapped below). I wasn’t supposed to be here. I was supposed to be in Santa Cruz, Bolivia.
For the first time, possibly in my entire life, I planned out this trip more than a month in advance. I rarely purchase a plane ticket more than one or two days in advance and often used to go to the airport and just ask, “What’s your next flight?”
But I planned this one out in advance for two reasons. For one, the airlines in almost all of South America are very difficult to manage (as you will see further below). There just aren’t many options and not many flights. Some destinations, like where I am headed, in Salta, Argentina only have one or two flights per week from outside the country. And, it isn’t like there are a lot of other options. There are no transcontinental trains. There probably are some bus options, but knowing many of the roads down here, often winding their ways through hills, mountains and rivers, the average travel speed probably ends up being around 30 miles per hour (50 km/h). No, thanks.
The second reason I planned it out in advance is that there are a number of things I want to see and I have somewhat of a tight travel schedule, coming from the PDAC Conference in Toronto and then soon after the trip, returning to the Calgary Resource Investment Conference. My plan is threefold:
- Take a tour of Doug Casey’s La Estancia de Cafayate in Northern Argentina to give a full report to TDV Subscribers on the potential for buying a property and living there
- Visit Bolivia and Paraguay – two countries I have never been, which is pretty rare for me – and check them out as potential expatriation options for TDV subscribers
- Look at the viability and potential of starting up a cattle operation in either Paraguay or Argentina
I will almost certainly be writing to subscribers more on the cattle operation. Depending on how things go we may even look at doing some sort of investable operation whereby subscribers can become shareholders as it can be very difficult to find investable opportunities in this sector.
Many people who know me are re-reading the last few paragraphs. Did Jeff, the city-boy whose only experience with farms is on Facebook, say he was going to start a cattle ranch??
I might! I am a city-boy but what I am, more than any of that, is an entrepreneur. I can’t go 3 months without starting a new business. And while I am, admittedly, very early in my due diligence, the investment case for starting a cattle ranch now is almost too good to turn down. But, I'll go into more details for subscribers at a later date on the profit potential.
It also meets almost all of my other requirements for TEOTMSAWKI (The End Of The Monetary System As We Know It) preparation.
One of the top questions I get asked is: “Sure, gold is a good hedge against what is going to happen. But no one thing is perfect and there are things such as confiscation, taxation and other government imposed attacks on freedoms that could cause gold-holders some major problems… so, what else do you suggest to hedge against TEOTMSAWKI?”. As readers of TDV know, I also like investments in energy (preferring uranium at the moment) and agriculture. But the biggest problem with agriculture is it is hard to invest in.
You could buy futures but if TEOTMSAWKI comes to pass, futures exchange will just be shut down. Turn off the lights, closed.
So, having a cattle ranch in the middle of nowhere in South America has a lot of other positives. If worse comes to worst, you could just live there. If things get really bad and even the food supply chain stalls for a period of time… well, sorry Betsy, but papa’s hungry! Steak every night for dinner? There are worse ways to live!
And finally, from what I have garnered from people like Doug Casey, himself, who has already started his own cattle ranch, it can be very, very profitable. Apparently these cows keep procreating! You start with 100, before you know it, you have 1,000. Any business where you just add a little water and your product multiplies exponentially is, in my books, an excellent business.
I'm obviously just glossing over the entire business of cattle ranching... but the point is, I think there might be some serious potential and advantage to having your own South American cattle ranch.
I’ll likely be writing lots more on all those topics in the near future.
But let's get back to why I am still in Peru against my will.
As I mentioned above, I had a total of about 10 flights over a 12 day period and it is very difficult to find flights that synch up well with others, so I actually had to set aside a half-day to just plan out this tour.
The total trip entailed three different airlines: Aeromexico, LAN and Aerosur. It took me hours, especially because Aerosur’s website barely works, but I had finally figured out a way to do all I needed to do in a short period of time and booked it.
That was over a month ago. By chance, the day before I left I just decided to double-check my itinerary to make sure I didn’t make any mistakes. I clicked on Aerosur’s website and pulled up the 4 flights I had booked with them. ALL of them had been changed. Not just the time, some had been changed by 2 days! No emails. No calls. They just changed all their flights. Upon talking to someone who knows the airline, she stated blandly, “Oh, yes, they always do that.”
Always?? They only have 1 or 2 flights per day, you’d think it’d be pretty easy to stick to a few date/time commitments!
Because there are literally no other options to get to where I needed to go this involved changing all my other flights to try to adjust to the Aerosur changes. But, fine, after paying some flight change fees and going through another half-day of work I had it all sorted. It wasn’t perfect… far from it, but I could make it work.
Here’s where the fun really begins!
My first leg of the trip was Acapulco-Mexico City-Lima. I had a one night stopover and stayed at the excellent Ramada hotel which is as close as you can be to the airport without actually being in the airport. It is literally 20 feet from where the exit gates are. Perfect, I thought, my morning flight to Santa Cruz, Bolivia wasn’t until 11:10am, so I’ll have lots of time to get a good nights sleep, wake up, do some work, exercise, eat breakfast and then saunter over.
I had a great morning. Did some power yoga in my room in the morning and had a nice breakfast. I knew the check-in counters were about 30 seconds away so I thought I’d go over about an hour before the flight. No big deal I thought.
I walked up and, uh-oh, “trainee” badge. At that time it was 10:05am. Lots of time I thought – 1 hour and 5 minutes before my flight.
She spent about 5 minutes squinting at her screen and trying to get the attention of her fellow colleagues to ask them how the computer worked. This took about 5 minutes. Finally, she says, without much emotion. “Oh, sorry. It’s closed.”
“What’s closed?” I asked, still not realizing what was about to happen
“The flight. Closed.”
“Oh, okay. Yes, I know, now there is less than an hour before the flight and some of these archaic systems just shutdown. Just call for an over-ride,” I responded.
It took another five minutes to even find someone to help and after them talking it over for another five minutes, the new lady informed me, “I’m sorry sir. You are too late.”
“What do you mean? The plane hasn’t even boarded yet,” I stated, pointing at the board, “and I’m here. So what’s the problem?”
“You need to be here one hour before the flight. There is only 50 minutes now.”
“I was here more than an hour before the flight but it took your trainee nearly 10 minutes just to figure out what to do!”
“Yes, well. Sorry, sir!”
“You are kidding, right?” Now I was realizing the seriousness of the situation! "If I miss this flight, I will miss my next flight, the flight after that and virtually 8 other flights,” I admonished.
“Yes, sorry.”
That was that. I yelled and shouted for a while. But that was that. The system closed. No plane for you.
“What if the plane gets delayed by 2 hours, can I board then, because I’ll be more than an hour early again?”
“No, sir. Really, that is enough,” the supervisor stated dryly as though she had had enough of the gall of me trying to get on the flight I paid for.
This went back and forth for a while. But here is the icing on the cake.
I finally gave up arguing with them (well, security came and took me away… no handcuffs this time though!) and I walked over to the LAN ticket counter and told them my story… they seemed to have no interest in it as well. I never looked it up, but LAN must be partially government owned (I know it used to be a government airline – it probably still has the government culture in it like Air Canada) AND must be totally unionized. You never see people so disinterested in helping you in the free market.
I stated, “There is still a chance this won’t completely destroy my entire trip. If I can get on the next flight to Santa Cruz, tomorrow, which routes through La Paz, if I run, I could still make my flight to Paraguay tomorrow. So, how much is it for that flight?”
“Just one- way, no return?” she asked.
“No, I have a return flight from my flight today, I will use that.”
“Oh, that is cancelled now too. Because you were too late today.”
“Why in the world would you cancel my entire round trip just because I missed my first flight??”
“Sorry, sir,” she stated, with that now familiar cold, glassy eyed stare.
“OK, I am done arguing. I submit. Book me an entirely new roundtrip ticket. How much is it?”
“$1,100 sir.”
“The other one I booked was $400! Are you kidding?”
“No. Would you like to book it or not?”
Great service they have at LAN!
This whole ticket-rebooking process took nearly an hour. As I walked, dejected, out of the airport I glanced at the Departures board. The flight I was booked on still hadn’t left - it was delayed and hadn't even boarded yet.
To add insult to injury, to change my AeroMexico flight which was now impossible for me to make, cost another $900.
And so that is how being five minutes “late” to check-in cost me nearly $3,000 in Peru.
Have a great weekend, my next report, flights permitting, will come from Asuncion, Paraguay on Monday.
Reader Comments (7)
All this happened because they sold your original ticket for cash to someone else. That's the way it works.
So you want to have a cattle ranch in a place that's hard to get to?
I'm interested in that as well but your story put a damper on that idea.
Imagine if the SHTF and you can't get to your all-you-can-eat beef casa?
If you have back up plans on this idea, I'd be interested in that also.
Your story really makes me appreciate US air travel now.
So you want to have a cattle ranch in a place that's hard to get to?
I'm interested in that as well but your story put a damper on that idea.
Imagine if the SHTF and you can't get to your all-you-can-eat beef casa?
If you have back up plans on this idea, I'd be interested in that also.
Your story really makes me appreciate US air travel now.
You showed up an hour before takeoff at an airport in Peru, expecting that you would just stroll right on to the plane? I advise that you spend a little time living in Argentina before deciding to buy anything there.
Interesting, on LAN's lack of helpfullness would you attribute this more to government or unionization? Just curious I guess because its such a major issue in the US. I suppose if you are anti-government and anti-labor union you would be pulling for the labor unions...expecting this would bring an end to the state and the labor unions woulld go down as well.
and this guy wants you to invest with him?...this guy is gonna get plucked by the savvy natives down in south america and any of your personal investment $$'s are going to disappear with him....and casey's casas down in argentina are eventually gonna be expropriated by the broke argentine government someday...sheesh, this all is a train wreck looking for a place to derail......
Gold and Silver yes. Yes, yes, of course! Cattle ranch? In the Third World? No way Jose. This, in my humble opinion, is pie in the sky thinking looking through rose colored glasses. Far better not to be a Gringo in the third world when things go bad. Besides, the inputs to raise cattle are 'off the charts' - regular folks will need to eat the grains and drink the water required to raise Gringo's cattle. Try eating less red meat and thinking about sticking around to help reclaim this great country (USA) from the central banking oligarchs who are going down.