Congrats rich!

I kept looking for FlyerTalkers on my flights, but didn't see any obvious candidates (no one else did the turn-around LIM-CUZ-LIM for example). While waiting in the airports, I'd occasionally yell out, "FlyerTalk?" to see if anyone turned my way. What's the sign, anyway?

I thought about leaving something behind in the Lima airport for the LatinPass FlyerTalkers to sign, but didn't follow through with this idea.

Regarding Rich's problems in MGA, this can be an issue at many of the airports. At Lima, for instance, there didn't seem to be any Aces staff on hand to provide boarding passes. As Rich noted, there's apparently some way to notify the airlines and have them provide boarding passes without leaving, but his experience shows what can go wrong. When we were faced with this situation, we chose to just leave the transit area, wait in line for a boarding pass at the ticket counter, and pay the airport tax when required.

We got pretty tired of paying the airport taxes. We paid three times in Lima! We stayed the night and had to pay $25 for our next day trip on Aces, then $4 for Taca-Peru trip (domestic fee), then another $25 to head back home. No real way to avoid this given our travel plans.

The airport tax rules varied from place to place. In Quito, for instance, we left the airport and spent 12 hours in the city, but weren't required to pay a tax. On the GUA-SAL flight, my friends were asked to check their bags because each weighed more than 10 kg. They then had to leave transit to get their bags and pay the $25 airport tax. One was also charged for a $10 tourist visa! Pretty expensive 30 second walk to get a 11 kg bag.