The Adventure Awaits! But first, You Must Get There!

Our trip to Peru began with a 5:45 am flight from Spokane to Denver. Rhonda and Mackenzie (15) met Abbi (14) and I at the gate in Spokane. Our hope was to fly nonstop from Denver to Miami on American, flying out of the A gates in DIA. But, since we fly standby, we had to be flexible and figure out a backup plan. Turns out we needed that plan B, as the Miami flight went out completely full, without us! ✈️We hustled back over to the Southwest gates (C concourse) to catch a flight to Houston's Hobby Airport (We got the last 4 seats and crammed "the body," aka my backpack, into the wheelchair compartment.) When we landed there, we took a cab🚕 🚖 to Houston's Bush Airport. From there, we took a flight✈️ to Fort Lauderdale, then another cab🚕 🚖 to Miami's International Airport, where we had confirmed seats 💺💺💺💺on LAN airlines to Cusco. We had been waiting until we could check in there to have dinner, but when we finally got thru the long lines, the only food available was from Starbucks!

Second Stop-Houston! Me and "The Body."

Our Lima flight departed at 2AM. We arrived in Lima at 6AM their time, 4 am our time (25 hours after our alarms had first went off.) We still had to get to Cusco! We were all hanging on by a thread, exhausted and rummy, when we heard my name paged in the gate area. The agent informed us that we needed to go back to baggage claim to recheck our luggage after clearing customs. We were going to miss our flight, she said, but would be accommodated on another flight, later that day. We were delirious and confused! The agent in Miami had stated that she checked our bags all the way thru and we had claim checks to prove it. Amateur move, I guess, but we really thought we could check our luggage all the way to Cusco.

Getting ready for our red-eye flight to Lima.

We retraced our steps back to the security gates, where we were met in the hallway by a guard and a locked door. In very broken English/Spanish, we tried to explain our circumstance. We were held in the locked hallway while watching thru the window, the guard trying to explain to another official what we were doing. She poked her head in the hallway and asked, "Excuse me, Miss, but why are you trying to leave?" During this time, many airline crews swiped in and out of the hallway with their badges. We had somehow found an employee entrance to access the gates.  Although we were so exhausted, the four of us were still laughing at our plight. Considering we had now been traveling for over 24 hours, I was impressed with the ease in which we were all still getting along.
After showing passports and filling out a second set of customs paperwork, and having our names logged into a journal of some sort, we were allowed out of the "holding cell" hallway. We found our way back to customs/baggage claim and were met by another set of customs paperwork, passport showing, and journal logging. Then came the patdown and examining of our carryon backpacks! After putting Rhonda through the whole process, we decided to just send her to get all FOUR bags and the girls and I would head for the line to rebook our flight. The three of us went to the long line for rebooking, and Rhonda met us about 10 minutes later, with THREE checked bags. She forgot hers! She didn't remember that she had brought her roller bag, as it was a last minute decision. It was a good thing we hadn't moved in line, assuring us that she had plenty of time to go back thru the ENTIRE process again. Customs paperwork, passports, journal, patdown, inspection of carryons. As ridiculous as it was, it was also hilarious. I'm not sure if we were laughing so we wouldn't cry, but whatever the reason, we were in stitches. I only wish I could have witnessed Rhonda trying to explain to customs what the bag of wine (removed from a box) in our checked luggage was!
After that ordeal, we ended up on an 11:30 flight to Cusco. Fortunately, there are flights nearly every hour between Lima and Cusco, so we were able to arrive only about 3 hours later than we were originally scheduled.  Nearly 33 hours after we woke up for our journey to begin, we were finally in Cusco! When we arrived, we weren't sure how to get to our Hostel, as we were obviously not there on schedule to meet our prearranged shuttle. I felt afraid to trust anyone, and we weren't sure about using our cell phones. A nice baggage claim worker called for us and after some time and communications, he put us in a van and we were on our way. Another cab driver warned me it wasn't a good choice because this guy didn't have a badge, but after calling the hostel one more time, we took a chance and got a ride to our accommodations.  It turned out ok, but I was a little worried for a bit. We agreed to meet at 6 for dinner and we all took amazing naps for a few hours!

I was too excited to sleep!

Mackenzie knocked on our door at 6:15, waking Abbi & I from a dead sleep. I startled out of bed and we hurried to get ready for dinner. The front desk recommended Paucha Papa's as a middle scale restaurant within walking distance. We ordered potato soup, margarita pizza and a bottle of wine. It was surprisingly good! I had set my mind on starving all week in Peru. (I'm not a very adventurous eater and neither is Abbi.) As the day came to an end, we walked back to our temporary home, full bellies and a bit of a buzz from the wine and altitude. Rhonda saw a sweet elderly woman sleeping on the street and was determined to give her $20. The three of us convinced her not to, but, I can't say it didn't touch my heart as well. The streets seemed very safe, and still quite lively for a Monday evening. It was a short walk back to our beds and we fell deep asleep very quickly.

The view of the Courtyard from our second story hostel room.