Utter chaos might be the best way to describe conditions at Miami International Airport on May 20, when Scott and I returned to the US after two months of lockdown in Argentina. We and 200 other passengers disembarked from a fully-packed Eastern Airlines repatriation flight that left Buenos Aires four hours late. Two more full flights from South America arrived within minutes of ours, and immigration officials on the ground seemed completely unprepared to handle the onslaught of exhausted passengers looking to navigate the immigration process.
We followed signs for Mobile Passport App users only to be thwarted when we attempted to use the check-in kiosks, because they were apparently set up only for people who also had Global Entry privileges. So we made our way to the snaking line of more than 500 people, forced by an airport official into roped lanes that made social distancing impossible. When he barked to passengers that Mobile Passport App users should be in yet another line, we backtracked – past dozens of passengers in the narrow lane – only to find that we had been directed to the wrong line yet again.
According to the website for Miami International Airport, medical personnel from the Department of Homeland Security are on site to perform random temperature checks before international passengers reach passport control. The website also states that CDC personnel are on site to provide additional screening to passengers showing symptoms of a contagious disease. We saw no evidence of any health screeners whatsoever.
This was a stark contrast to our experience in Buenos Aires earlier that morning. When we arrived at the entrance to the airport, a full-suited medical worker aimed an infrared thermometer at our foreheads to check our temperature before allowing us inside the door to wait in line for our flight. But in Miami, there was no temperature checking, no questions about potential symptoms of COVID-19, and no verbal instructions to quarantine. We had passed a screen at one point telling overseas arrivals to quarantine for two weeks once reaching their destination in the US, but it blended in with a dozen other signs and placards we had passed in the winding hallways between our gate and passport control.
Once in line, non-citizens were directed toward a scattering of check-in screens while US citizens skipped this process altogether. There were no paper declaration forms to be found, and when we finally reached the passport control desk more than an hour later, the officer didn’t ask to see one. Instead, he glanced at our passports, skimmed over the past year’s collection of stamps from Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil and Uruguay, and asked where we’d arrived from.
“Argentina,” we replied.
“How long have you been gone?” he asked.
“A year.”
“Vacation?”
“Sort of,” I replied.
“Welcome back,” he said, then stamped our passports and waved us through to collect our luggage.
Stamped passports in hand, we made our way into the luggage retrieval area, where seven or eight shiny luggage carousels sat empty and still. The overhead information board indicated that the luggage for all three flights would be directed to carousel 3. As a result, a few hundred masked passengers had already surrounded the carousel. All social distancing discipline had been abandoned, as people crammed together, shoulder to shoulder, some sitting on the edge of the still-empty carousel, others pushing their metal luggage carts through the masses to park themselves next to the conveyor belt. We watched for our bags from a safe distance and donned our plastic face shields before darting in to retrieve them when they appeared.
Next stop: customs. But customs did not exist: not a desk, not a sign, not a scanner, not a single customs official. We laughed about the fact that we shouldn’t have turned down all those offers of cocaine in South America, as we could have easily smuggled in bales of it.
We had booked a hotel room in the airport hotel, so after a 15-minute walk through a few terminals we found ourselves in a line of fellow travelers also checking in with the single staff member at the front desk. Several people were demanding to see the manager. One man complained, “They knew how many guests would be checking in. They should have been prepared!”
By the time we reached our room, it was nearly midnight. We set an alarm for 3:30 a.m. to catch our 6:00 a.m. flight and collapsed into bed. After what seemed like a few minutes, the alarm was going off, and I was stumbling into the shower. We re-packed our bags and made our way back through the airport for the first of four flights to the West Coast.
Fortunately, the second day of travel was less chaotic than the first. We flew United using mileagePlus points, and social distancing procedures were implemented on each and every flight, all of which were maybe one-third full. Passengers were seated no more than one per row, per side, and the plane was loaded a few rows at a time, starting from the back. All passengers were reminded to wear masks unless they were eating or drinking, and food and beverages were served in pre-packaged containers. Upon landing, we deplaned from the front, a few rows at a time.
When we landed in Houston, each passenger was greeted by a uniformed official asking if we would be staying in the city or passing through. Those remaining were told to quarantine for two weeks, while the rest of us were reminded to stay in the terminal. Many bars and restaurants were open, and about 80% of the people in the airport were wearing masks. In fact, numerous signs indicated masks were required to be worn in Houston anywhere outside of a private residence. Nevertheless, as one unmasked trio of twenty-somethings strolled past, one of the two women asked, loudly enough for the rest of us to hear, “What should we sing next?” Her companions ignored her and kept walking.
In Tucson, only one restaurant was open, and ours was the only plane on site when we landed. We bellied up to the bar and drank a couple of pints of local craft beer while chatting with a traveling nurse who sat several barstools away. When the next plane landed and the restaurant began to fill up, we paid our bill and retreated to a less crowded area until boarding the next plane.
As we boarded the plane to Denver wearing both masks and face shields, the unmasked flight attendant burst into laughter and asked if she could take our photo. We posed, giggled, and told her the shields were “all the rage in Argentina.” She walked into the cockpit to show our photo to the pilots, exclaiming, “Look! We’ve got welders on board!” While she never donned a mask herself, she did announce and enforce social distancing guidelines during the flight.
Like in the other airports, most people in the Denver airport were wearing masks while walking through the terminal and sitting by their gates. We approached a margarita bar but retreated quickly when we saw that every bar stool was occupied and all the tables were full. After sheltering in place under extremely severe restrictions for two months in Argentina, a crowded bar was a bridge too far for us to cross.
By the time we reached Redmond, Oregon just after 8:00 p.m., we were beyond tired. After 42 hours from doorstep to doorstep, we fell into bed before 10:00 p.m. and slept for 12 hours straight.
We have now been in self-imposed quarantine for almost a week. But to us, it feels like freedom, because we can enjoy the sunshine in the back yard or wave to neighbors walking by from the front porch. In Buenos Aires, we were questioned by the police every time we left the house for groceries – one of the only activities allowed – during the first weeks of lockdown, which began on March 20. It wasn’t until the second week of May that we were allowed to leave the house together for one hour-long walk per day while we remained within 500 meters of our residence.
Here in Bend, restaurants are open for on-site dining, but we will be delighted to simply venture out for take-out, and we will be among a small minority of people wearing masks outdoors. Though we are both red-blooded, true-blue Americans, we’re not quite ready to exercise our freedom to share a deadly virus with our neighbors, despite the infinitesimal chance that we might be carrying it.