Lima has quite a few interesting things to see and is worth at least a few days look if possible. It can be a little unsafe, though.

Santiago is a very nice city with a charming colonial center, nice views of the mountains, and in general is safe and the people very friendly. I use it as an occassional getaway from Buenos Aires.

Speaking of which, you (wisely) failed to mention Aerolineas Argentinas, which in my opinion may be THE WORST airline in the world. It's flights are perpetually delayed or canceled, and that's when things are going well. During a very frequent strike, you can forget anything taking off.

Agree with you 100% about Casablanca, though!

I've always felt that way about visiting other countries--if I ever make it to France, I plan on hitting Toulouse and Nice and other interior/southern cities. To only visit Paris would be like thinking all of America is New York and LA. And I realize that there are plenty of Americans who think that; but since I live in flyover territory, it makes me curious about other countries' flyover areas.

Alberto Santos-Dumont made his controlled flight on 23rd of October, 1906 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Santos-Dumont). However, on 18th of March, 1906, a Romanian aviator (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traian_Vuia) made the first controlled flight of an autonomous machine (without any aid from the ground). Funny enough, both of them are at the end of the "First flying machine" article on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_flying_machine). I guess they were all groundbreakers, but saying that Alberto Santos-Dumont made "the first flight" depends on the definitions of "first" and "flight".

In the summer of 1970, I got on a DC-3 in Guatemala City, to fly to Tical. Inside, there was no inside, just the outside skin of the DC-3, above, exposed to us passengers, and wooden floorboards below. Animals were onboard. A guy at the back stood up and smoked, leaning on 55-gallon drums.

We stopped in Flores, partway to Tical. Ground attendants pulled the afore-mentioned 55-gallon drums out, and pumped their contents by hand pumps into the wings of our DC-3. This was Avia Teca (?). Was that the name of the Guatemalan airline?

We made it to Tical, and back, so I should not complain. But I was not impressed.

Without a doubt in my mind, the worst airline in Latin America is, or was, Cuba's Aerogaviota. The truth is that it isn't even an airline, properly speaking; Gaviota is a tourist company owned and operated by -- get this -- Cuba's armed forces, as a way of earning a little cash. Aerogaviota's "fleet" consists of Cuban military craft with the airline's name tacked up over the military insignias.

I actually flew on an Aerogaviota flight from Havana to Santiago de Cuba around the year 1998. It was the only flight I've ever taken that gave me some insight into why some people fear flying. The plane was a YaK (a Soviet military plane), easily 50 years old and looking the part. The passenger seats, for example, folded nearly double, both backwards and forwards, not just when you pressed the little button but whenever they felt like folding.

The Aerogaviota people had us board the plane, which proceeded to sit outside the terminal -- in Havana, in the middle of summer -- for about two hours, with the engine off (not enough fuel to run it) and therefore no fans or airconditioning inside. The temperature inside the cabin must have climbed to well over 100, if not 120. The flight attendants were very nice, but they had no water to give us. People were starting to faint, literally.

At last, the engines started, the electricity came on, and the fans began to pump hot, steamy air into the cabin. Withing a couple of minutes the whole cabin was filled with a thick fog -- but at least the air was moving! And then the flight began...

All I can say is that, when the pilot finally plunked the plane down in Santiago with a bone-shuddering landing, and all the seats flopped forward and back at random, everyone instantly forgave the clumsy pilot (no doubt doing his best under the circumstances) and burst into genuine applause for having survived the ordeal.

That'd be Minneapolis for me.

A city I've visited innumerable times courtesy of NorthWest, but never had the inclination to see.

As a contrast - what about the cities you cannot wait to arrive in?

For me (and this is stretching the definition of city somewhat) it has to be Bozeman, MT. Great people, a T-Rex at baggage reclaim and the most beautiful landscape right outside.

Patrick,

I can think of a couple of towns here in SC that exist purely for tourists. Myrtle Beach and Hilton Head.

I live near Hilton Head and, quite frankly, people visit Hilton Head because of the golf and good weather. While it's located along the coast of SC, it has nothing culturally in common with the rest of the area. Almost everyone who lives there is from somewhere else. Even it's most famous landmark, the Sea Pines Lighthouse, was erected by the developers. Very "disneysque"

Just came back from Nicaragua a couple of months ago and would have to say that San Juan de Oriente near Catarina which overlooks the Apoyo Lagoon (which I think you're referring to in your article) struck me as totally existing for tourists wanting to purchase local pottery. I have never seen so many pottery stands in my life.

after seeing that photo of biz class on LAN, I want to go somewhere with them now! Look at how big those video screens are. They obvious invested some money in that product. Now, are all of their planes that nice or just this particular one?

I had a memorable flight from Miami to Santiago on Ladeco many moons ago. Rickety plane, young, suntanned and overly friendly flight attendants (I was a lone female traveling with a horde of handsome 20-something fellows to one's wedding. Even though Ladeco had a one class plane, my group got major first class service from the FAs!). We stopped in Bogota, Colombia, Guayaquil, Ecuador, Arica Chile, and finally, in Santiago itself.

It was during the World Cup, and every stop, the airports were empty ghost towns, because everyone was off watching the games, and the pilots and crew would all gather around some tiny tv somewhere in the airport to watch the latest match (Chile was doing well in the "Mundial"). We'd leave late (because of the game), and get back on again, with the short nervewracking takeoffs customary at high altitude to get up and above the mountains. The views in and out of these airports are quite amazing -- the Andes, the desert, even flew over the Plains of Nazca with their drawings -- all quite something to see from the air!

In the meantime, the flight attendants brought drink after drink -- the Ladeco drink of choice was Chile's favorite Pisco Sour. I don't remember what we ate, if anything, but we drank our way across Latin America, quite happily!

Something like 14 hours after leaving Miami, we arrived in Santiago, drunk and tired, but happy! (Of course, in those days the airport was not lovely, not like its current iteration. In those days, still under Pinochet, there were machine gun toting Carabineros scowling at everyone in the cramped baggage claim area. Welcome to the revolution!)

Anyway, just a memory of one flight on the defunct Ladeco...