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Three in the morning, alarm goes off and Rachael and I jump out of bed after getting a fresh three hours of sleep (t'was our fault...well NBC & ABC have a part in that too). My gracious mother took us to the airport, of course she had forgotten her glasses and drove home blind (bless her little heart as a true Texan would say), next came the American Airlines melee. No lines, no order, 300 people trying to get on the same flight and two attendants at the counter. Needless to say we were pushing our time limits a little bit, but we eventually got to our gate and the flight left on time.
Bienvenido a Miami, and welcome to your two-hour-delayed flight, which in time turned into three hours. We walked to both ends of the airport looking for the quintessential Cuban restaurant only to be told we had to go past security to find anything worth while. So we got our Cuban sandwiches and croquetas and the cashier thought I was asking about cashews when I asked if it was "cash only". We finally boarded and we were off to the wonderful, yet dirty city of Lima. We had planned to have a friend pick us up at 9pm to sleep at his place until 4am, but of course there was no way I could tell him that we would be late. We figured he would get the airport, see that it was delayed for three hours and then come back later. Well five hours later my dear friend, Nender Aguilar, told us that he did come at 9pm and did try to see if our flight was in but airport authorities couldn't tell him that until 10:30, by which time he thought it was best just to stay and wait. Good man, not sure I would have waited more than two hours. We got to his house at around 1-something, we talked for a little bit, he gave us a huge avocado and we slept for two hours on a mattress he had put out for us and we were off again at 4am.
The flight to Cuzco was pleasantly much less eventful. Although, Rachael did get reprimanded for taking a photo as we were boarding the plane; apparently, it is a matter of national security or something. We saw the sun rise over the Andes, saw some huge snow-capped mountains, and landed safely in the center of the Inca world.
We were told by our travel agency that we would have someone pick us up and take us to our hostel. We waited, and waited, and watched all the gringos go with the people who had signs with their name on it and we waited still. A very nice, yet savvy business man, helped us out. He called around the tour groups, none of which opened their doors until 9am (it was 7am at the time), and he eventually found out where we were staying (shame on me for not knowing the name of our hostel BEFORE we took off). We got a taxi over there and then in our sleep-deprived states he sold us on a couple tours that were just too good to be true. We got another valuable two hours of rest and we were off again to see the town on one of the tours we had just purchased.
First stop, the Templo del Sol, the main cathedral in the center of town, and surprise, what you paid for already didn't include the entrance into that place. So Rachael and I defiantly stayed outside on the grounds and took a bunch of photos and even used the tripod that Jenn gave us for Christmas. Another fateful decision (also my fault)...while handling the camera with one hand and taking one of those lame self pictures and trying to turn it around with that same one hand, our precious digital camera fell from my hands at an astonishingly movie-slow pace and hit the ground. At first, the heart dropping moment was nearly adverted when it looked like everything was still working. Of course, that was before we tried to take a photo and then see the results: all white...digital camera #2 of 2 had of all intents and purposes bit the proverbial dust, or in this case, Inca stones. We did manage to get pictures that day by befriending a fellow gringa from Washington named Lilly. We hung out with her and swapped out SD cards and got our fill of pictures. Of course, the next day, our trip to one of the modern seven wonders of the world would be a different story. Hurriedly, I went out to by a film camera to be able to use for the next day. It was expensive, and I immediately had buyers remorse for the extra tour that we had scheduled in our sleep-deprived state.
Long story short, the film camera worked beautifully at Machu Picchu, of course, pending the results of development to fully validate that statement....we're going to get our money back from that tour that we now have decided was way too much money AND we found a guy who said he could fix our digital camera for $40...we'll let you all know how that one turns out. But through all the fiascoes and fateful decisions, we've enjoyed our time immensely and can't wait to get over the border to my old stomping grounds!
Bienvenido a Miami, and welcome to your two-hour-delayed flight, which in time turned into three hours. We walked to both ends of the airport looking for the quintessential Cuban restaurant only to be told we had to go past security to find anything worth while. So we got our Cuban sandwiches and croquetas and the cashier thought I was asking about cashews when I asked if it was "cash only". We finally boarded and we were off to the wonderful, yet dirty city of Lima. We had planned to have a friend pick us up at 9pm to sleep at his place until 4am, but of course there was no way I could tell him that we would be late. We figured he would get the airport, see that it was delayed for three hours and then come back later. Well five hours later my dear friend, Nender Aguilar, told us that he did come at 9pm and did try to see if our flight was in but airport authorities couldn't tell him that until 10:30, by which time he thought it was best just to stay and wait. Good man, not sure I would have waited more than two hours. We got to his house at around 1-something, we talked for a little bit, he gave us a huge avocado and we slept for two hours on a mattress he had put out for us and we were off again at 4am.
The flight to Cuzco was pleasantly much less eventful. Although, Rachael did get reprimanded for taking a photo as we were boarding the plane; apparently, it is a matter of national security or something. We saw the sun rise over the Andes, saw some huge snow-capped mountains, and landed safely in the center of the Inca world.
We were told by our travel agency that we would have someone pick us up and take us to our hostel. We waited, and waited, and watched all the gringos go with the people who had signs with their name on it and we waited still. A very nice, yet savvy business man, helped us out. He called around the tour groups, none of which opened their doors until 9am (it was 7am at the time), and he eventually found out where we were staying (shame on me for not knowing the name of our hostel BEFORE we took off). We got a taxi over there and then in our sleep-deprived states he sold us on a couple tours that were just too good to be true. We got another valuable two hours of rest and we were off again to see the town on one of the tours we had just purchased.
First stop, the Templo del Sol, the main cathedral in the center of town, and surprise, what you paid for already didn't include the entrance into that place. So Rachael and I defiantly stayed outside on the grounds and took a bunch of photos and even used the tripod that Jenn gave us for Christmas. Another fateful decision (also my fault)...while handling the camera with one hand and taking one of those lame self pictures and trying to turn it around with that same one hand, our precious digital camera fell from my hands at an astonishingly movie-slow pace and hit the ground. At first, the heart dropping moment was nearly adverted when it looked like everything was still working. Of course, that was before we tried to take a photo and then see the results: all white...digital camera #2 of 2 had of all intents and purposes bit the proverbial dust, or in this case, Inca stones. We did manage to get pictures that day by befriending a fellow gringa from Washington named Lilly. We hung out with her and swapped out SD cards and got our fill of pictures. Of course, the next day, our trip to one of the modern seven wonders of the world would be a different story. Hurriedly, I went out to by a film camera to be able to use for the next day. It was expensive, and I immediately had buyers remorse for the extra tour that we had scheduled in our sleep-deprived state.
Long story short, the film camera worked beautifully at Machu Picchu, of course, pending the results of development to fully validate that statement....we're going to get our money back from that tour that we now have decided was way too much money AND we found a guy who said he could fix our digital camera for $40...we'll let you all know how that one turns out. But through all the fiascoes and fateful decisions, we've enjoyed our time immensely and can't wait to get over the border to my old stomping grounds!
1 comment:
Well...sounds a lot like our trip to Spain already! A mixture of frustrating mix-ups and accidents along with the awesome wonder of being in a place so totally different from good old dry (106 degree!) Las Vegas.
You are in our thoughts always. Eventually you will have a day with NO snaffoos! Take care! Victor and Adele
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