Three days notice and we are off. Not too much planned, no hotels, just a route to the main destination. We are off on an adventure to Peru! Wow!!! Are we really doing this? Just hopping a plane and doing the whole "Amazing Race" thing, lol? We are. And it is just way too cool. We leave home at 3:30 in the morning for DFW and get checked in for a stand-by flight at 6. After security, we sit down and I do a quick check on the flight and suddenly the "open" flight to Houston that we need has closed up. Hmm -- so, another flight that I was not aware of is just leaving and I hear them call stand-bys so I walk up to the gate agent and ask if we can hop that one instead. As her fingers click over the keys on her computer, I have a moment of worry --- first flight and we are already changing things --- does this bode well? She looks up and asks me where my husband is and says, "go get him" as she hands me boarding passes. So, were are off to Houston. One advantage to not checking luggage.
The one and only United flight to Lima departs Houston each day at 4:00 in the afternoon and it is now 7 am. We havea long day at the airport ahead of us so we head down to the end of a terminal and find a corner near windows that is deserted and set up camp. First things first -- I buy a blanket and pillow and we settle in on the floor and sleep for awhile. Perhaps we should be studying Spanish, but instead we rest and talk.
Time passes quickly (yep, it does) and after grabbing our last American food for awhile, we are headed to South America. Naturally, Mister goes right to sleep as I settle in with a movie. Shortly, the flight attendants arrive with dinner and then it is just relax and rest. We arrive in Lima at 10:30 pm. and go through customs without a hitch. After a brief stop at the information desk to figure out how and where to purchase train tickets to Aguas Calientes, we go to the LAN Airlines ticket counter for our connecting flight to Cuzco The staff there are amazing and tell us that we will have to wait until 1:30 am. to see if there are any seats available on the 5:30 flight the next morning.
You can't go to the gate area without a boarding pass, so we are told to head up to the food court area to spend the night. Quite a few crazies are doing the same thing and there are people trying to sleep in many nooks and crannies of the shopping area. Sitting in the food court and watching people is interesting and the security is an obvious presence. After some money changing so that we will have cash when we land in Cuzco, we enjoy a soda and then take turns resting and being on baggage watch until Mister goes down to see if we can get seats on the flight. Yep -- and so off through security we go.
Now, airport security in Lima is totally different than in the U.S. and we love it. Quick and easy -- no invasion of privacy and yet everyone feels perfectly safe. Go figure. The PeruRail kiosk is within the secure area, so we stop on the way to the gate. After a few minutes of pantomime and Tarzan Spanish (the man speaks no English), we find out their system is down so "come back at 4". We are off to the gate area, stretch out on the seats - another smart approach and kudos to Lima as the seats don't have armrests between them and you can lay down all the way - and crash. Once again, people are stretched out everywhere trying to go back to sleep.
The next thing I knoew, Mister is waking me up to watch bags while he goes to get the train tickets. There are only three trains a day going to Aguas Calientes, so we need the tickets to make sure we can get on the last train. I wait and wait and soon the area fills up with people. Gate agents arrive and flight crews are boarding on several flights. Hmm -- where is Mister? I watch the many beautiful attendants for the various airlines and admire their uniforms and sleek look while I wait. Soon, our flight starts boarding and so what to do now? I have both bags and I know that Mister is up two flights of stairs and I can't leave them. So I put mine on my back and lug his up the stairs to find him waiting in line and no counter person there. We don't know what to do, but I leave his bag with him and got back down to watch for when he will have to give up and join me. After about another 10 minutes, I go to check on him again, knowing we are almost out of time.
This time the ticket agent is there, but was just booting up his computer and at least Mister is first in line. I tell him I will ask the gate agent to wait as long as possible and I head back down. Dang, hiking up and down stairs with this pack on my back isn't too much fun. The flight starts "boarding" and so I get in line and watch like crazy for him to come down the stairs. Soon, he comes running with his bag and rail tickets in hand and we go through the door to board the plane. But wait, no plane. Instead we board a bus? My first taste of Peruvian hospitality when we board the bus and a gentleman points to a seat in the corner for me so that I don't have to stand. Cool.
The bus departs the terminal and heads past old hangars and out onto the tarmac. Soon, the bus stops at our plane and out we go -- up the stairs and onto the plane. We have a 20 minute delay and Mister and I both look at each other as we have a limited amount of time to get from the airport to the train station outside of Cuzco All we can do is sit back and hope the plane makes up time. The snack box on the plane has cookies and crackers, a nice touch for only a one hour flight.
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