An we are off!

It's August 8th, 2018. The time has finally come!  Time for our Peruvian adventure to begin!  What kind of journey will we have? How difficult will it be?  How will the altitude affect each of us?  So many questions and no answers!  Only time will tell.

We made our way to the airport in plenty of time.  I have no idea why but airports stress me out.  Even the ones as small as Ottawa's.  Ridiculous I know.  I've been in many airports, nothing horrible has ever happened yet they stress me out.  The idea of a missing a flight or connection... Anyway, let's get back to the point.  We make it to the airport and try to check-in our bags using one of the stations.  The station would not give us a baggage sticker.  Said there was an issue with the passport and ticket names.  Great! Just what I need right now... more stress...  So we visit a teller (that's always better anyway...) No problem - he says it's because it's international flight.  Give him our bags and off to security we go.  No problems there - smooth sailing.

We meet the rest our group and wait to board.  Not very exciting until... I get a text from a frantic Melissa.  They won't let her through as the name on her passport doesn't match the one on her ticket.  Odd as both Remi and I had the same issue and we got through no problem... maybe we will have to stay in Peru?! They've now  giver her seat to someone else (she didn't do the check-in the day before) and so she's placed on stand-by for later flight as we are already boarding.

We get on the airplane, doors close and the pilot comes on the intercom: "Welcome on flight.... I have some bad news for you folks..."  WHAT?!  "Toronto is not accepting any flights at this time.  We will be on this tarmac for 45 to 60 minutes..."  He's kidding right?  And so we wait and wait, having fun taking pictures with our phones.  People are anxious to get out as they need to be in Toronto by a certain time.  After over an hour of waiting, two people get off.  I get on my phone to let Mel know to get on it that 2 passengers are leaving, this could be her chance.  She responds she's been called, she's on.   She's so full of shit!  The good kind!

We ended being on the tarmac for 2 hours 40 minutes.  We are lucky we even got to lea

ve as all other flights to Toronto were canceled. Phew! Big sigh of relief!  The problem now: will we make it in time to catch our connection to Lima.  Originally we had  2 hour layover... we were now left with nothing... Luckily, our flight to Lima was also delayed and we were able to make it in time.  We arrived just in time to board!  Thank goodness!

We arrive in Lima after 8 hours of being in the air, having a 4 year old kid pushing and kicking my

Mel thinks it's Prince Harry

seat most of the way. Fun! said no one ever.  Needless to say, I was not able to sleep.  We landed in Lima, made our way to our next connections - we had to go through customs and change sides of airports- but had lots of time.  

The flight from Lima to Cusco was about an hour I guess.  I'm not sure as I was fast asleep before we had even taken off!  On the flight, Remi woke up just in time to see the flight attendant pass our group quickly and laughing because we were all fast asleep!

I woke up a few minutes before landing in Cusco.  Wow! What a sight!  The mountains are huge!  It's beautiful!  My first impression when we landed was - where are we landing? This place looks abandoned!  Rest assured - it's not.  The city is vibrant and full of life!   Around the airport they are building I guess.  There are no windows and so everything just looks abandoned.

It's pretty darn cold here.  Had to take a long sleeve shirt and my poof jacket out of my backpack.  No wonder we didn't see anyone in shorts and t-shirts!  It's only a couple of degrees.

Well, let's see what this first day will bring! 

Looking forward to my MAC book! Can't pictures where I want on this computer! argh!