After 36 hours, I´m here in Peru!

First let me begin with, Peru is awesome, getting here was not! I left my condo at 3 pm on the 24th and finally made it to my first hostal at 4:40 on the 25th. The trip is long in general, but the two hour delay in Miami, the weather in Cuzco, and the LAN airline employees made it worse.

Long story short, many of us missed our connection in Lima and then American put on on later flights to Cuzco the only problem is that LAN airlines wouldn´t honor those seats and refused to let us on the plane. I learned that there is a bit of a feud with American and LAN although they are ¨One World¨partners. After the delay in Miami and the tired state I was in, a lesser man would have crumbled.....ok, I almost crumbled at the LAN counter because they were so unhelpful. Anyway, out of it all good came. I met two wonderful people.

Andi, a grandmother who recently lost her husband, and her grandson Drew were in the same situation as me. After a bit of tea and trying to figure things out, i felt better. Andi is a world traveler and although she did nothing that I wouldn´t have done, it was nice to have another person to hang with. After 3 trips between American and LAN´s counters, we were all booked on the 12:30 flight to Cuzco. I didn´t have it so bad though. Andi and Drew had been trying to get to Peru for 3 days but due to airline issues they were majorly delayed. Drew, I thought was about 11, is actually going on 13. For a kid who had little sleep in 3 days he was doing pretty good. I think his grandmother was about ready to kill him, so having me enter the situation was good. Take the most ADHD boy you have, multiply it by 10, add in lack of sleep and you have Drew. He was a great kid though, I could tell.

On my way to Cuzco I met a guy I recognized from Miami. He is a Master´s student from London doing research here in Cuzco. He too had been trying to get from the States to Peru for 3 days. so my over 24 hours was nothing. He has some friends coming to Cuzco on the 4th,the same day I arrive there so we are going to hang out. as he was writing his email down for me he said, ¨Í¨m Matt.¨ I smiled and said the same thing.

Last night i got to Pisac. This place gets pick dark at :30 and the village shuts down. I grabbed some dinner and headed to my room. I had the most wonderful shower of my life. Not because of the intense pressure or the impressive shower, but because needed it so bad. Although I take showers often, some of you boggle your eyes at me when I say I don´t like to shower. Well last night I did. I settled into bed, wrote in my journal and slept from 9pm until 9 am today.

So far today I have eaten my weight in empanadas-yum! I´ve seen live guinea pigs but have not seen a cooked one yet. I´m going to eat one though! There is a huge market here, so I´m going to spend some time there until I head to Ollaytatambo later this afternoon.

Adios!

p.s. as with emails, I reserve the right to misspell words plus with this keyboard, it is inevitable.