Cuzco: LanPeru Blues

Today was the first of many early mornings to come for me. I woke up around 6:00, after only getting four hours of sleep- thank you insomnia and wireless Internet, to shower and refresh before going to the airport. The breakfast at Hotel Antiguas Miraflores is good. They serve the food a la carte, and not as a buffet. This can be good or bad depending on how big of a rush you are in since food preparation time can push you back on your schedule sometimes. It did not bother me much since I woke up early. I decided to order the chicken tamales for breakfast, a decent choice. The problem I had was that there was hardly any chicken in it, but the savory high-on-lard content made it worth finishing. A heart attack on a plate, anyone? Speaking of heart attack, I also found myself drinking some strong coffee this morning. I have no idea what was in it, but I felt so jittery all day. It was a trip, for sure!

To get a ride to the airport, I had the lady working at the front desk call a taxi for me. By luck, Rafael came and picked me up. On the drive over, he warned me about Cuzco’s elevation (about 10,000 feet) and altitude sickness. As usual, Rafael also gave me some advice on how to combat its affects, for which I dutifully made mental notes. When I arrived at the airport, I could see how the benefits of waking up early continuing to pay off by getting there about two hours prior to my flight departure. The line at the domestic check-in was ridiculously long for LanPeru. The people in line sure were on edge that morning, most of them cranky from being at risk for missing their flight. As for me, I was delighted and proud that everything was going well. I just stood there, shook a little, as the coffee worked its magic.

When arriving at the security checkpoint, I realized that I skipped an entire step I forgot existed in Peru. For departing flights, travelers are required to pay a departure tax to the airport, not charged when you buy your plane ticket, apparently. It was not too expensive, around $6.00. However, it is something that I will have to factor into my timing when I fly back to Lima, as well as in and out of Ayacucho. Getting past the security check-point was easy, probably because I am so used to flying and know what I need to do to make getting to my gate faster. What I thought was nice was that I did not have to take my laptop out of my backpack as I usually do when flying between Maryland and California. Although, I took the shortcuts too far when I did not take off my shoes, which has metal in them SOMEWHERE and caused me to make a second go-around through the metal detector. Well, now I know better.

As soon as I got to my gate, I felt relieved that I made it there in time. I sat there, relaxed, thinking I was home free and that it was going to be a fantastic morning. Boy was I wrong. It was actually the start of a horrible morning. It was about 8:45AM, and my flight to Cuzco was scheduled for 10:00AM. Sitting patiently at Gate 13, I read my book for about an hour, and saw that it was 9:45 and nobody had begun to board. I looked at the screen overhead, departure from Lima to Cuzco at 10:15AM at Gate 13, it said. Yep! That is the one...but... where is everybody? I go up and ask the attendants if I was at the right gate. No. No? NO!? It is at gate SIX!?!? Crap! Before I even have the chance to yell at them for being misleading, I run off to gate six, only to find the flight I was so confident about being on time for pulling away.

When I get to the gate, I talk to the nice LanPeru assistants and they immediately help me reschedule, no problem. I just have to fly on the next flight that departs an hour later. I do not mind waiting a bit longer. Oh, wait, my ride to the hotel from SAS is expecting me to arrive with the other passengers at 11:00AM, but that is my newly scheduled departure time! Yikes! Moreover, Sarah, a girl I met online through Cross-Cultural Solutions, and am supposed to be traveling with for the next couple of days, was expecting me to be at the hotel. What do I do? I cannot call. I had no change, and the pay phone would not accept my credit card. I look at my cell phone, and I think, "How do I work this contraption?" I call Laura, from CCS. Crap, she is at a meeting. I pace a bit, and call my mom. I ask her to call the hotel so she can leave Sarah a message. My mom then tells me that Sarah has not checked in yet. Has not checked in yet? She was supposed to have arrived several hours ago. Where the hell is she?? I try calling Laura again and reach her. Since my mom had a lot of trouble communicating with the people at the hotel, I ask her to try talking to them to find out more about what is going on but she reports the same bad news.

I sit for a bit, feeling very distressed that everything went awry so quickly. I then hear a short announcement: The flight that I was rescheduled to go on had its gate moved upstairs. Ha! They were not going to outsmart me again. At least I got the right gate this time. While waiting, I saw that there was an iPeru booth right in front of me! It was just what I needed. For those of you who do not know, iPeru is a tourist information and assistance service located throughout the country. By going to them for help, they were able to work with me to figure out what was going on. First, they called the hotel again to see if Sarah checked in, which she had not. Then, they called SAS travel and were able to notify them that I was going to be an hour late, and that they should fix their schedule to accommodate my flight change. Sadly, she was also able to figure out that SAS did not pick up Sarah. I was more perplexed than before. Where is Sarah? Is she at the airport? Did I get the details of our rendezvous mixed up?

To get at least an idea of where Sarah may be, I provided LanPeru with the details of Sarah's flight, and they told me that her flight was later than originally scheduled, and that she is already in Cuzco. LanPeru is obviously notorious for having flight mishaps and that one needs to always pay attention when flying with them. I got a peace of mind when I found out Sarah was where she needed to be, since I heard that she was ill last week. At least she is in the right country now! The best plan, then, was to just get to the hotel in Cuzco and meet up with her there, hopefully. There was not much else to do except move forward. The plane ride was not a long one anyway. I befriended a lady on my plane who was from Rhode Island was traveling with a senior group. We bonded from suffering from the same messed up plans and schedules due to how unreliable LanPeru is. Complaining helped make me feel better. When I arrived in Cuzco, I had forgotten about all of the frustrations that plagued me while in Lima. My luggage was behind the check-in counter, ready and waiting for me as promised. An SAS worker was waiting outside to pick me up, as instructed by the helpful iPeru agent. Everything fell into place again.

The overall atmosphere and vibe in Cuzco is fantastic! The weather was a little wet, but not the kind of humid and gross kind of “wet.” Rather, the air smelled like crisp fresh rain. Houses lined the mountains and so I immediately likened this city to San Francisco; although, the buildings and homes look dilapidated. This place is not like Lima, which can be like city that is trying too hard to become a major urban center, but only assimilates the negative aspects of one as a result.

When I arrived at the hotel, I was relieved when I discovered that Sarah had made it there safely! When she came down to get me and let me in the room, I knew that everything was all right. Fortunately, The San Agustin Hotel- International Cuzco is also a very nice place. It is not a five-star hotel, but a fantastic deal given how I only paid sixty dollars for two nights (sharing it with someone else with two beds per room). It also offers steal-able wireless internet, courtesy of the Libertador, an actual high-end hotel whose wireless radius seemed to reach the San Agustin. They also offer an unlimited supply of coca tea! I am sure the term “coca” looks familiar for those of you who do not know what it is. Coca leaves are the raw source for cocaine. However, Coca is legal in Peru and is often a remedy for headaches and altitude sickness. Since Cuzco is about 10,000 feet above sea level, locales throughout Cuzco offer Coca to relieve people of altitude problems. It also tastes delicious!

I did not have too much time to relax in the hotel since there were many things Sarah and I still had to take care of. We had originally put down a $100.00 deposit for our Machu Picchu trip for tomorrow, but we still needed to pay the rest of the costs to the SAS travel office. We also have no idea what the plans for tomorrow are so we had to go figure that out too. When we got there, Sarah and I found out that the price of the tour was only going to be $155.00 total for each of us tomorrow. Well, Sarah’s was around $137.00 since she had an ISIC card. Nevertheless, that is a fantastic deal, especially since I originally thought the price for the full day tour was going to be at least $200.00. Anyway, the package includes transportation from our hotel to go to the train station, the price of the train tickets and bus tickets, and a tour in English. It also includes everything for the return trip as well. I am totally stoked for tomorrow!

After dealing with tomorrow’s logistics, Sarah and I decided to explore the city. We could not do a satisfactory tour that would explore all of Cuzco since it was so late in the afternoon. However, we did explore the Plaza de Armas and basked in its beauty. Cuzco’s grand plaza is not as nice as Lima’s, I will admit. Nevertheless, it is not as congested, which makes me appreciate it a lot more than Lima’s. Everything felt more accessible, and open, despite Cuzco being a more popular tourist destination in the first place. After getting some nice pictures in the plaza, Sarah and I then went to the Incan Archaeology Museum. It cost us around five soles to explore. It would have cost us more had we requested an English-speaking tour guide, be we thought it would be more convenient if we just walked around at our own pace to check out the artifacts. We also erroneously believed that there would be English captions for the artifacts as well. That was dumb of us since that was definitely not the case so we had no idea what anything was. Thus, I would recommend people to purchase the tour should they decide to visit the museum as well!

Dinner was fantastic this evening. We decided to eat at the Inca Grill, a restaurant highly recommended by Frommer’s. It is a bit pricey in my opinion, about $15-20 per person. On the other hand, it was worth it. Since Sarah and I were spending so much money, we decided to splurge this evening and ordered the cuy (guinea pig) and alpaca (a llama-like animal). Both dishes were delicious, especially the cuy. The meat was tender, and the flavors were amazing. The alpaca tasted like chicken, so I could not complain. I was just happy to eat two things I have never eaten before. I am always down for an adventure when it comes to trying out new foods.

It started to rain as soon as we finished dinner. We wanted to get a taxi, but could not direct the driver on how to get us back to our hotel since we thought we had lost the map (which I later on found in my pocket! ugh). Instead, we chose to walk back to our hotel using our memory. The walk was not bad at all. It was even pleasant. The rain did not hit the streets too hard. Furthermore, we got a glimpse of the nightlife in Cuzco, which rain apparently cannot hinder.

When we got back into our room, there was nothing left to do but to relax and prepare for tomorrow. And, so, here I am now. It is still surreal to think that I am so far from home right now and that I have been in Peru for two days already. Maybe it is because we are watching the results of the Iowa caucuses on CNN, the only English-speaking channel we get in our hotel room. I cannot believe that Huckabee won on the Republican side. Is our country really that driven by religion? Sheesh.

Tomorrow, Machu Picchu awaits! I am so happy to be here.