Flying South for the Winter

If you aren't already aware, Melissa and I are famous for packing heavy for every adventure. We definitely need our camping gear, but what if we get a chance to do some rock climbing? And what about the possibility of winter mountaineering with our three year old? Or scuba diving? Or a jungle trek on the back of an anaconda? Did you remember to pack the anaconda saddle and bridle? You get the picture.

Carry-on Caravan

Lola doing some last-minute window shopping.

So, although we tried to show some restraint in our packing, what with the gear, school stuff, pharmacy, and taco seasoning in tow, we managed to stuff each piece of luggage to the maximum allowable weight limit. In other words, keep an eye out for the occasional FedEx parcel headed your direction as we return whatever excess crap we don't jettison here. I suppose we'll need to make space for trinkets and alpaca wool products. One thing I can certainly say is that the SLC Sky Caps were a real godsend.

Harper and Lola overcome with the magic of flight.

The months of planning and weeks of packing all paid off the instant our wide-eyed girls took their seats in the airplane. I had the joy of reliving the wonderment of my first flight, this time through their eyes. It was absolutely exhilarating for them, at least for the first few minutes, that is. Once the novelty of jetting through the clouds wore off, though, the girls moved swiftly to the gadgets around their seats. I remember how bored I ended up on that first flight to Orlando and my mom trying to keep us pressurized with Dentyne and entertained with playing cards but, this time, over the next thirteen hours, I sure was glad for all of the new on-board technological distractions there for our nippers.

Vagrant Camp, Lima International Airport

One observation that we made in planning this trip was that air traffic to Latin America seems pretty Gringo-centric, in that flights tend to leave and arrive in the States at really convenient times, but at very inconvenient ones down south. For our part, we touched down in Lima just before midnight. This challenge was compounded by the fact that most Lima-Cusco flights happen early in the morning to avoid dangerous thermodynamics that prevail when landing at 10,500 ft later in the day. Given these two tough flight times, we decided to try and make lemonade out of lemons by spending the night in the Lima airport like war refugees and save ourselves the hassle and expense of venturing into Lima. In younger years, Melissa and I have both lived the adventure of trying to get some shuteye while being shoved around European train stations all night by over-diligent train cops. But, this time, we were fortunate to find ourselves in a spot where sleeping in the terminal was not only allowed, but actually pretty popular with the locals. So, although the two of us ended up with a lousy night's sleep, we managed to duck into a darker corner of the airport and set up some fine accommodations for the girls atop our splayed-out luggage:

Harper's recent journal entry seems to have described the hazy, sleep-deprived scene perfectly:

“Ahhhhh!!”The next morning I heard screeching and whoke up. “What is it?” I said in confushon. I opened my eyes and saw that it was just people walking (pulling their luggage). “Mom, your sleeping on a chairrr! Oh yes, we're at the airport!” I said. Then I noticed that Norah, my sister, was awake, to. We both giggled.

“Where are we?” Norah and me said at the same time. We giggled again.

“Oh ya, we're at the airport,” I said.

“Why did you say that?” Norah asked.

“I forgot we were at the airport. Did you hear the screeching?”

“Yes, and I whoke up and notised that you were awake.”

“No wonder” I said.

“Harper!!!!” and finaly my other sister Clover had to wake up and she jumped on me a lot.

The third and final leg of the flight was fairly uneventful, and we landed in Cusco to a milder tout scene than I was expecting. Rather than a horde of locals fighting over who got to overcharge us to haul our luggage around, two fairly polite guys sidled in next to us at the baggage carousel and helped us to an awaiting taxi driver, whether we liked it or not. Not surprisingly, though, what I considered to be a generous tip for their unsolicited five minutes of standing around with us at the baggage carousel and one minute of pushing a cart didn't satisfy them. I suspect that no amount of baksheesh would have met their approval but, as one who works for gratuities, the shakedown still gave me The Guilts.

Anyway, we managed to squeeze all of our stuff into the minivan taxi and we began our hair-raising adventure through the streets of Cusco and beyond to the Sacred Valley of the Incas, about an hour away. For those of you who haven't had the joy of a second- or third-world taxi experience, picture Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, except, rather than bouncing through verdant rural English villages, imagine a dusty, high-speed, white-knuckle game of “chicken” with every wheeled vehicle imaginable, folks of every size and shape, and every domestic animal ever domesticated, including the chickens themselves. Sadly, though, despite my enthusiasm for it, the sleep-deprived Pearce girls were so catatonic that they could hardly appreciate the magnitude of the adventure. For my part, although I did manage to enjoy the ride immensely, I spent the time trying to keep the girls upright in their seats to maintain their airway. It sure is great to again be back outside the States to slather myself in the sloppy chaos that is Peru.

Zombies in the back seat...