Thursday, May 16, 2024 & Friday, May 17, 2024
This adventure to Peru started well over five years ago. We originally planned to come to Peru in May 2020, and I think you can all guess what happened to those plans. At the time of our original flight, Panama had completely closed down, and their airports and flagship carrier were sitting idle, for months. So a Copa flight connecting through Panama City was never going to happen. We wouldn’t have gone anyway at that time, even if they were open, so I tearfully canceled our First Class frequent flier reservation in May 2020.
Life moves on, so Peru wasn’t first up when the world reopened. We had European mountains to hike!
That being said, we were anxious to reschedule our Peruvian adventure, so when the frequent flier ticket window opened for this May 2024 time period, you know I was hunkered down in our Munich hotel room booking the tickets on my phone. And I wanted to recreate everything – our first First Class trip too.
Pretty much everything went flawlessly with our travel until we got to Lima. The airport shuttle arrived to pick us up after our short, but busy, work week. We got to DIA, checked in our bags, wandered through the TSA mouse maze with relatively no issues. Once we boarded the plane, we sat guiltily in our big, wide seats while the steerage class shuffled by, wondering how we got to be sitting there.
The dinner service was nice, but slow, and drug on well past when Nathan and I would have liked to be sleeping. Our arrival in Panama City was uneventful, but the layover was pretty long and boring for a place that does not get up and serve a decent breakfast in the wee early morning. We’ve taken this flight to Panama City many times, so we knew what we were getting ourselves into. The flight from Panama to Lima was uneventful, and our arrival in Lima marked when the edges started to fray.
In Lima, we need to clear customs and immigration, pick our bag up from Copa, and redeposit them with the local domestic carrier LATAM, all the while surviving the mass of humanity at the Lima airport.
Miracle of miracles, our bags were some of the first off the plane, so we didn’t need to wait at baggage claim at all. But mine came with a fresh new hole in it. It had been hole-free. So, I pointed the hole out to a Copa representative, and he told me to deal with it on the app, or at least that’s what I thought he said. So we took our bags over to LATAM to see if they had any duct tape. Two one inch squares should really do the trick to patch the hole from both sides. LATAM had nothing, but then Nathan had the great idea to go the the bag wrap station, and the fellow there was more than happy to Saran wrap my bag for 50 soles or $13.50 USD. We redeposited the bag with LATAM, went through Peruvian domestic security line, and found a sit down restaurant for lunch.
The Lima airport is an absolute mob scene and there are people everywhere. We waited in line for a seat for lunch, finally got seated, waited forever for our order to be taken. There came a point where locals were getting assertive and getting attention and we were not and you have to wonder, culturally, where is the line between assertive and rudeness in this situation? We don’t speak Spanish like a local, and we don’t want to come across rude, but we also don’t want to be ignored or jeopardize our flight because we were too passive. The struggle…
Our food arrived, our layover was huge, and now the only stresses are my holey bag and this sea of humanity. Oh, and the Spanish language immersion stress that we find ourselves in. A day or two and this immediate culture shock will be over. Its part of the fun!
Our flight to Cusco from Lima was on time, and we spent most of the hour dozing off, in that unattractive, head bob, was my mouth open, way. We collected our bags from baggage claim, and walked out to the throng of cabbies to find the driver holding the sign with my name on it. Only he wasn’t there. We stuck around walking the line of drivers with names on boards for about 30 minutes before a lady pulled me aside and helped us navigate the situation. She and her friend called the hotel’s various phone numbers, she negotiated with a cabbie to take us to the hotel, she negotiated the price and told the cabbie to go into the hotel and get the money from them. After 24 hours of travel, she was the person we needed to find.
We got to the hotel without any further issue, checked in, and they apologized for the driver no-show. He had a problem with his car and he didn’t let them know.
By now, it’s nearing 7 pm, so we got ourselves sorted, walked to an ATM, and walked to the restaurant that the hotel recommended, Tunupa. It was quite fancy and nice, and more than we intended, but it was the experience we needed. We were seated at a high two top, next to the windows, overlooking the main square.
The food and drinks were amazing, our waiter Luis was superb, and the entertainment from both inside the restaurant and down on the street level was awesome. We chatted with Luis a little bit and told him that our anniversary was on Tuesday, and he even came out with a celebratory dessert on-the-house.
By 9 pm, we were stuffed, tired, and ready for bed, but only after this uphill walk back to our hotel. Cusco remember is at 10,800 feet!
