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| Standard breakfast: sweet bread, butter, jam and tea |
Saturday May 25,
2013: Cusco
My original plan was to try and book a trip to the salt mines for the next day, but I woke up feeling so sick that I decided to just
hangout, rest and try to prevent the stupid cold from progressing back to the
point that it had been a month ago! I went to the pharmacy for more daytime
cold medicine, picked up my chocolate from my chocolate making class from the
week before, and dropped off my duffle bag from the trek with Salkantay. I didn’t
really love the hostel that I was staying at, so I inquired about prices and
had a look at a couple of places nearby. I guess if you were on the stay in a
multi-bed dorm room for a cheaper option, it was okay. Only 1 of the 6 toilets
had a seat on it and the door to that 1 nearly locked me in 2-3 times, plus
they weren’t on the scrambled eggs plan with the inevitable round sweetish
bread things for breakfast, so I figured that for 35 Soles a night, I could
probably find something for not much more that at least had a private bathroom.
So, I asked around a few places on my way home and actually the hotel about 50
feet down the street from my hostel ended up having a nice private room with a
private bathroom (AND hot water...you always have to ask these things and then
ask again, just to make sure, if you truly do want a hot shower) and it came
with breakfast for a whopping $2/night more! Well, at first it was a $6/night
more, but I talked the lady down based on saying I’d stay for 2 nights. Given
my general state of feeling pretty crappy, I had dinner and then decided accomplishing
4 tasks for the day was good enough!
Sunday May 26,
2013: Cusco
Since I made the decision to just chill out and not try to
get to the salt mines on my last full day, I decided to what I never
do...NOTHING! haha I slept in, got up and had breakfast just before it ended at
10:00 and she made me huevos rueveltos (scrambled eggs), such an added bonus in
my opinion to the silly bread rolls! Then I took a nap!
J I read my book for a while,
tried to check in for my flight the next day (unsuccessfully) and then decided
just to wander around Cusco for awhile.
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| Beautiful autumn day in Cusco |
Even in the big cities (like La Paz,
not Cusco), it doesn’t take very long to feel like you know exactly where
you’re going and that you’ve actually already seen most of what there is to
see, but Cusco is really pretty and people watching is pretty entertaining, so
I walked to the square, tried to find a few gifts for people and then just sat
and watched the world around me, all whilst trying to maximize my Vitamin D
production! I wasn’t feeling very imaginative and the salad the night before
had been delicious, so I ate at the same restaurant and then went home, took my
night time “coughing, sneezing, stuff head” cold medicine and went to bed!!
Monday May 27/Tuesday May 28,
2013: Cusco to Lima to Miami to Dallas to Denver
Well, today marked the end of my nearly month long stint in
South America. Considering I felt like this day would never arrive when I first
got to La Paz and didn’t know how I was possibly going to manage this trip all
on my own, it suddenly felt like it had all flown by, and I couldn’t believe
that I would be leaving this beautiful part of the world and heading back to
“reality” (although Boulder, CO may not actually count as “reality”, haha) in
just a few hours! After breakfast, I got the hotel lady to book me a taxi to
the airport and then decided to go have a coffee, enjoy the beautiful Centre
Square in the sunshine and then spend most of my remaining Soles on whatever
gifts I could find for people (or myself...Happy Birthday to me, haha) so I
didn’t leave the country with too many Peruvian Soles, as I’m not a big fan of
the “change it back” plan, as you just loose way too much money to the
financial institutions, it really bugs me!
I managed to spend most of the Soles left on hopefully not
wasteful/useless gifts for people and returned in time to get my taxi to the
airport just in time for the total travel circus to begin. I don’t think I have
ever arrived at an airport 2.5 hours before a flight before, but wow, am I glad
that I did! I ended up standing in line just to check in for over 1.5 hours.
Because the flight from Cusco to Lima was a LAN flight and the rest of my
flights were American. I actually had to collect my luggage in Lima and recheck
in, but with a 5+ hour layover none of that seemed like it would be a problem.
After a 2 hour wait for the check in desk to open and a mass confusion as to
how to actually check in, I made my way to passport control, which had a huge
line, too and then onto another slow as Christmas line for security. Once I
finally got through, I decided to spend my remaining Soles on a Pisco Sour, a margarita
like drink (Pisco is Peru’s nation drink, at least the one they are the most
proud of and brag the most about). Anyway, after ridding myself of my remaining
Soles (not my SOUL!), I returned in time to get ready to start boarding, only
to learn that the flight was going to be at least 1.5 hours delayed.
L
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This was not a good
sign, since 1 of the other 4 flights that go from Lima to Miami had already
been canceled that day and there were a lot of angry people who had been there since
4:30 a.m. trying to get outta there! I was simply annoyed that the “dinner” I
was planning on eating on the plane was now going to be more like a middle of
the night meal and I was actually going to have to break down and eat an
expensive meal at the airport! I’m not super tight or stingy with my money, I
just don’t like spending it when I don’t have to! Anyway, I had a quite tasty
(if not the tiniest) steak burrito with delicious guacamole and then joined the
milling crowd at the gate. I began to worry that the flight would be canceled,
which was only particularly annoying because I was trying to make a very
precisely timed meeting with my friends Chris and Abby in Boulder when I arrived back in CO the next day...before
they left CO to go home to Oklahoma later that afternoon, as I haven’t seen them
in 2 years. At some point I realized that even if the plane did actually leave,
I was going to miss all of my connecting flights, so I got in the queue at the
desk to see if they could rebook the flights for me before getting to Miami.
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| Military intervention |
There weren’t many of us clever enough to have this plan ahead of time, but I
stood in line for an hour, nonetheless... on Peruvian time, which is sort of
like Peruvian flat, which is in fact NOT flat! Anyway, during the time
that I was in line, people (presumably those who had been there all day)
started getting very angry and frustrated and yelling and the Spanish was
getting louder and louder and faster and faster until they finally brought over
one of the military police guys. Up until then, I honestly thought this one guy
was going to throw a punch! Anyway, I finally got to the front of the line and
very politely smiled and asked if there was anything she could do to help me
out from Miami to Dallas and then Dallas to Denver? While she wasn’t quick, in
the end, she rebooked me into a later flight to TX in economy plus seat and
then she put me in 1
st class on the flight to Denver! Smiles go a
long way when everyone else is being crabby and complaining!
We finally boarded the plane and left about 3.5 hours late.
Getting into Miami was just in time to get all through border control and
rebook my bag to barely make the flight to Dallas. Once I got on that flight,
we had the privilege of getting to sit at the gate for over an hour whilst they
worked on some mechanical problem. It was really starting to feel like the 24
hour travel day from hell and I really wanted to make it in time for my Denver
flight so I could actually take advantage of that smile earning 1
st
class upgrade!
J
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| Good thing I ran! |
After we finally were on our way to Dallas I realized that 1
st class
to Denver probably wasn’t going to happen. We were landing after my boarding
began and my flight was in a different terminal. After 24 hours of travelling,
the last thing you want is a mad dash sprint, controlled panic, with no warm
up, but that’s what was in the cards! Luckily I was just...JUST quick enough,
probably having a 1
st class ticket might have helped, but they ended
up waiting for me and I instantly got sympathy from the 1
st class
flight attendant which proved to be my undoing about 15 minutes later! I
ordered a glass of red wine, she brought me 2. Before I was finished with those
2, she was back with another and a cup of warm nuts. I was thirsty AND hungry,
so before I knew it, the 3
rd glass of wine was gone, too, but at
least dinner arrived at that point.... with a glass of water, and, you guessed
it, another glass of wine! haha I’m pretty sure the flight attendant felt that
she could personally “wipe away” my last 27 hours of horrible travel
experiences!
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| Glass of wine #4 and a delicious meal |
After 4 glasses of wine, I was feeling a little bit drunk but
definitely more relaxed than any other period during my last 27 hours of
travel! As they were cleaning up the delicious dinners and we were getting
ready to land, my best friend flight attendant came back and handed me another
of the baby bottles of wine and said, “I left the lid on, put it in your bag,
and welcome back to America!”
J
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