Chileno+Gringa+Peru Don't Mix

I've seen a few travel challenge inspired posts lately and it reminded me to write about my experience in Lima, Peru. On my last trip to SA I experienced first hand that a Chileno plus a Gringa is not a good combination in Peru. We had a horrendous itinerary flying from Miami to Lima and then to Santiago. We didn't realize that Spirit airlines would not be able to transfer our bags in Lima to LAN. Nor did we realize that we would have to go through customs and immigration all the way out of the airport only to enter the airport again starting with the LAN front desk and all the way back through the airport to the gate.

We arrived at the LAN gate in Lima to Santiago. Almost all the seats in the waiting area were taken so we parked our bags and stood there. S and I were traveling with my father and his girlfriend. I was getting the typical gringa stares but then I noticed that some of the women were whispering, pointing, and looking at me. When I caught them they tried to pretend they weren't talking about me. I was getting really paranoid. The LAN counter was busy but it didn't stop one of the women from the LAN desk from coming over to S and I. In English she said that she needed to weigh our bags (obviously she had noticed my gringaness). The bags she was referring to were actually my dad and his girlfriend's carry-ons. They were small Louis Vuitton and Coach carry on sized travel suitcases they had just carried off the Spirit Airlines flight, travel with often as a carry-ons, and not something they wanted to check. S picked up the suitcases and took them over where she made him put them in the metal thingie to check the size (not the weight as she stated- must have been a translation error). One of the bags fit but the other didn't fit all the way due to the wheels sticking out slightly. The LAN lady said that we had to check it. I protested that we had just gotten off another flight with them as carry-ons (Spirit airlines which I consider to be a school bus in the sky- not premium at all) and they travel with them all the time and never have to check. They conform to every other airline's standards of measurement. She wouldn't budge and I became REALLY mad. I asked to speak to her supervisor. By this point EVERYONE was staring. My dad came over and pushed on the bag a little and got it to fit in the metal thing. The supervisor came over and still said "No, you have to check it". Now I was on the verge of being irate. People were starting to board the plane- and the worst part is that there were quite a few people carrying on bags that were bigger than ours. I was pointing them out telling the supervisor that he needed to check everyone's bags if they were going to single us out and check ours. In the US I would have fought this discrimination but being in a foreign country and needing to catch a plane and not wanting to be stuck in Lima we decided to just give in and let them check it. We did take a picture of how the bag fit, took names, and threatened to follow up with it later. See? It fits! (If the suitcase fits- you must acquit! :) )


On the plane S explained to me that they singled us out because he was Chilean which is bad to begin with but then on top of it the fact he was with a gringa was a really bad combo. This made it even worse to have my fears confirmed that it was discrimination and I think he waited until later to tell me for fear of what I might do. I have had several run-ins with LAN (here is one of them) that have not been pretty and I have come to the conclusion that customer service in that company is non-existent and I refuse to fly them. I also decided to not waste my energy addressing this experience as I already know they will do nothing. The good news is that I feel I've had some vindication in the fact that Chile as Kyle put it "wiped the floor with Peru" and beat them in futbol recently :P YEAH!

(P.S. I know that I'm being a little harsh in the fact that this is one isolated situation that happened to me and it could happen anywhere but it did make me angry because I was clearly singled out in this situation. We did travel back through Lima on the way back, went to the coast for the day and had no issues like this again).