Peru here I come

Day 1, Thurs., June 25, 2009

I am attempting to blog yet another of my once-in-a-lifetime adventures. My sister, Anne-Marie, 12 other traveling buddies and I are going on a 19-day trip to Lima Peru, Cuzco Peru, Machu Picchu,Quito Ecuador, and the Galapagos Islands.

With the end of school being so hectic and having my niece, Tarah-Anne, and my nephew, AJ, visiting, I had only a day and a half to pack and begin thinking about this adventure. I was finished with packing at 1 am and had to catch a flight at 12:00pm from SFO to Miami. I woke up at 6:30am and decided that I was going to stamp 4 Thank You cards. 1 for the tour guide in Peru, 1 for the tour guide in Ecuador, and 2 for the host families who are preparing us lunch and inviting us into their homes.

My cousin, Ron, drove us to SFO at 9:45. We were the early-birds of our tour group. With all the traveling that we did as children, we learned to get to the airport early. When we did our self-check-in, we noticed that our luggage was check straight through to Lima and both our boarding passes were printed. Our vacation had finally begun. Our flight on American Airlines was on time and we had a pleasant flight to Miami inspite of the fact that I was in the second to the last row in an aisle seat, and Anne-Marie was in row 24. Being in the back of the airplane has it´s advantages and disadvantages. It was great to be able to stand without being in anybody´s way, but unfortunately I was also close to the bathroom. Without my ear plugs I could hear every time the toilet was flushed. Fortunately, I always travel with ear plugs.

When we arrived in Miami we had enough time to walk around and stretch our legs. The flight was pretty full. I had a tasty beef dish for my meal, but it could have been warmer. Since my personal movie monitor wasn´t working correctly, I put the ear plugs in and put on my eye mask and slept until they woke me up for preparation for landing. That was a quick 3 hours.

We landed in Peru at 5:40am. I was tired, but at least I had several hours of quality shut eye.
As my sister and I watched the luggage carrousel go around and around, we got the sinking feeling that our luggage was lost. Everyone else in our party had their luggage and so we went to investigate. Thank goodness our friend Mercy, who teaches Spanish, was able to assist us. For some unexplain reason, my luggage had been taken off the plane and placed on the far wall of the baggage claim. At least I had found my luggage. My sister was another story. The good news is that they knew it was still in Miami and that we would not be able to get until the following flight had arrived. Luckily she packed extra clothing in her carry-on. Let this be a lesson for all. She was without her luggage of a day and a half. The airlines had it delivered by the afternoon of the following day.

I don´t know how many days I´ll be able to blog as we will be leaving for the highlands soon. I will not be able to post pictures right now. Sorry. Trust me, I´m taking a lot of them.