Wednesday 14 October:

ItineraryLima to home. Mid-morning transfer to the airport for flights homeward, to continue dreaming and start skiting.

The previous afternoon Juan had suggested to the more obsessive birders that they might like an early start to the day and go down to an area he knew where we might get some additional birds.  Stephen and I were iquick to accept

This was a magic outing.  We went to a swampy area on the Southern Outskirts of Lima and wandered around for about an hour and a half getting a wide range of water birds including some in the marsh, some on the dunes including whimbrels




and a couple  -including this flock of Peruvian Pelicans - out to sea.

The final stop was at the jetty on which we had enjoyed our sumptuous repast the previous evening.  It was rumoured that Inca Terns roosted under it.  Unfortunately - to start with - the jetty was being cleaned so we couldn't go onto it.  However it didn't matter at all as several Inca Terns flew out and perched on one of the souvenir stalls on the Jetty.

I think in total we added 17 species to the trip list which I think ended  - for the group as a total - at 307 species.

Back to the pub, have breakfast and into the bus for the airport.  here we experienced queueing.  Despite having boarding passes we had to queue for:

1. Baggage drop;
2. Airport Tax (why won't LAN collect this as is done at every other airport?)
3. Security; and 
4. Emigration.

No grief just aggravation.  This is the sort of bureaucracy that should be chopped rather than useful services such a schools, libraries and hospitals.   Eventually we got off for the flight to Santiago.  The last 40 minutes of this were through the mountains, and unfortunately we were on the coast side of the plane: we still got a reasonable view but the seats a, B etc wuld have been better.

This, and my memories of the nice time we had had in Santiago at the start of the trip had me in a very favourable frame of mind.  This lasted for about 5 minutes as it appeared that LAN had delayed out departure from 11pm to 3am, meaning the holdover was 9 hours rather than 5.  All they would do was give us a 5300 pesos for a meal, which would cover much more than a sandwich and a juice.  Grrrr!

The one good thing about this was watching Chile play Ecuador in a World Cup qualification match.  Chile won 1-0 to the delight of those watching!  The worst thing about it was that most of the airport was blessed with TVs that played crap gangsta-rap videos.  However if one is my height it was quite possible to literally pull the plug on these.  After a couple of demos I noticed ones I had not personally visited had got the treatment!

Whe the flight eventually took off I dozed for the first 6 (of 13) hours so was not in too bad a shape when we got to Auckland and thence to Sydney.  The drive back to Canberra was OK and thesmall dog very pleased to see us.

The end to a most excellent adventure.  Rather than take up the invitation to skite I will stick to the truth about a tremendous holiday.