Peru Travelogue, Part 1

While sitting our gate, Steve was telling me about the automated phone call he had received from Barry Switzer, telling him to vote for Brad Carson for senate. A woman sitting several feet away from us, with amazingly sensitive hearing, turned around and asked Steve more about the telephone call. She then introduced herself as Katie Boatwrite, daughter of Dr. Tom Coburn. Steve and I both jumped to our feet and pounced on her like the huge Tom Coburn groupies that we are. Katie was very pleasant to talk to and caused us to be even more impressed with her father.

The high-quality airline-booking agent that we stumbled across on the Internet seated Steve and I in different sections of the plane for our flight from Miami to Lima. I sat beside a man with dark curly hair, who looked Castilian, but was in fact from Canada. All of the flight attendants made the same mistake I did and tried to speak to him in Spanish. His response was always the same. "What?"

The in-flight movie was Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The tracking was so bad that you could never see more than half the movie on the screen. The sound was worse. I plugged in my headphones and it was like plugging directly into the jet turbine outside my window.

I spent most of the flight reading The Lost City of the Incas, by Hiram Bingham. It seems to be required reading for anyone going to Machu Picchu. The Rough Guide quotes passages from the book throughout the section on the Inca Trail. Hiram Bingham was the North American explorer (from Hawaii) who was credited with rediscovering Machu Picchu in 1911. He discovered it inadvertently and had no idea what it was at the time. Most of it was buried under vegetation and the part that was visible failed to impress Hiram. He spent only a few hours cataloging his discovery before moving on. His travelling companion was anxious to resume his hunt for butterflies. It wasn't until the 1940's, following a disgraced career in the U.S. Senate, that Hiram decided to rewrite his account of the discovery of Machu Picchu, transforming it into an Indiana Jones adventure culminating in the archeological discovery of the century.

Friday, October 15, 2004

Our flight landed in Lima around 4 a.m. We had already purchased tickets with Lan Peru to fly us from Lima to Cusco. This is where we encountered our first problem. You need to understand that the Peruvian airline industry is in a constant state of flux. I don't know the determining factor behind the day-to-day shifts, but I suspect it's the street value of powder cocaine.

My 7-year old Rough Guide recommended using Aero Continente as our domestic courier. But before making our reservations, I happened to see a news story about the U. S. Treasury Department adding Aero Continente to its list of narcotics kingpins. Furthermore, all U.S. citizens were barred from travelling on it. Some U.S. tourists were stranded in the interior of the country when they got the word that if they used their return tickets they had purchased from Aero Continente, they would be fined by the U.S. Treasury Department when they got back home. (I don't know where the U.S. government gets the authority to tell me which airline I can use once I'm out of the country, but there you go.)

By the time we reached Lima, this was all irrelevant because the Peruvian government had revoked Aero Continente's license for "safety violations." The principal domestic carrier was now Lan Peru. But that changed as of the morning of our arrival. As we approached the Lan Peru counter, Lan Peru employees in crisp blue uniforms shot us big smiles as they handed us each a sheet a paper. I read the following:

"Our national and international flights have been suspended due to judicial detition [sic], both arbitrary and unjust, pronounced by the fourth civil court judge in Arequipa in response to a request by Aviandina S.A. for a preventive measure. Aviandina S.A. is a company which is economically involved with Nuevo Continente (ex Aerocontinente), and sought this measure to protec [sic] itself from our competition in the market, despite the fact that it has been inoperative for almost a year."

So I knew before reaching the counter that we wouldn't be going anywhere on Lan Peru. I surmised that this was Act I of what would be one long disaster of a vacation. Steve, however, never faltered in his walk to the counter. He either didn't read the paper he was handed, or he thought it was a bunch of gibberish. For entertainment value, I made sure to keep one eye on him as I headed for a different counter.

Another happy Lan Peru worker greeted me as if it was just one more fine day at the office. I handed her my ticket and she said, "You do realize that we aren't flying today. All of our flights have been canceled." I told her that I was aware of that and wanted to know whether there was another way for me to get to Cusco. She told me I would have to find another airline. The paper I was still holding in my hand said that Lan Peru would help me get on another airline, but I guess they were using a loose definition of the word, "help." It consisted of her pointing in the direction of another counter.

I looked over at Steve to see how his conversation was going. His mouth was hanging open and a confused expression was spreading across his face. The message was sinking in. He walked in my direction to bring me up to speed: "They say they aren't flying today." My Lan Peru lady told me that I could get a refund at the sales counter, but Steve's Lan Peru lady told him that since we didn't purchase our tickets directly from Lan Peru, we'd have seek a refund from our travel agent (i.e. faceless Internet site that might already be up for sale). That sounded like the more likely scenario, so we decided to start searching for another airline.

The bewildered looks on our faces quickly attracted the attention of short Peruvian lady with a bunch of tags handing around her neck. I quickly had flashbacks to Morocco where I encountered these sort of people at every port and bus terminal. Working off of tips and commissions, they help dumb foreigners get to where they want to go. They wear laminated tags around their necks to look official, but they might as well read, "Liz Taylor Collection."

We allowed her to escort us to an isolated counter with what appeared to be a temporary banner reading "Aero Condor". She assured us that this was the way to get to Cusco. There was a line of people, but our little redheaded bulldog took us to the front and shoved a fistful of our cash in the face of the attendant. We got our tickets for only a few dollars more than what we had already paid to Lan Peru. We were soon headed in the direction of the departure gates, leaving behind several angry faces in the Aero Condor line.

I tipped the woman what I thought was enough for the two of us, but then Steve gave her another $5. It was a Peruvian Christmas in October. I think we became the woman's adopted sons at that moment. Rather than leaving us, she found a friend to direct us to the departure tax counter and then to the exit leading to our departure gate. Our flight was to leave in less than twenty minutes, meaning that we would arrive in Cusco almost an hour earlier than if Lan Peru hadn't gone into the toilet. That's the way my entire trip would go. Whatever Peruvian service you are dealing with, there's the chaotic appearance of a tornado in a junkyard; but once the dust settles, you find yourself behind the wheel of a new Cadillac.

Well, maybe not exactly a Cadillac. When I saw our plane, I began to suspect that Aero Condor had been formed overnight to take advantage of the Lan Peru debacle. It looked like something that Howlin' Mad Murdock had pieced together from burnt debris found at the end of the runway. (Did you catch the A-Team reference?) Lan Peru operates modern jets that could rival any major American carrier. Aero Condor, however, was putting us on a twin-prop plane that must have rolled off a Russian assembly line during the Khrushchev era. There was very little plastic or cloth on the interior - it was all metal. Any floatation devices or life vests had been yanked long ago. I had a seatbelt, which must be considered a luxury item. I began to pray that Aero Condor was also a drug carrier like Aero Continente. I figured that they were more likely to guarantee a safe trip if the plane was loaded with coke than if it contained nothing more than two U.S. tourists and a bunch of Germans. I had to wonder about those "safety violation" that caused Aero Continente to be shut down.

After a short but noisy flight, we touched down in Cusco under cloudy skies. When we stepped off the plane, we were over 11,000 feet above sea level. Just for reference, Tulsa is 804 feet above sea level. The elevation didn't hit me like it did when I got off the plane in Lhasa, Tibet (12,000 feet), but I didn't have to walk very far before I was out of breath. My headache would arrive the next morning and remain with me for the next day and a half.

There was supposed to be someone from our hotel waiting for us at the airport, but we assumed that they wouldn't show since they must have known that Lan Peru was shut down. We happened to strike up a conversation with a girl from Buffalo, NY while we were searching for the baggage claim area. She suggested that the three of us share a taxi into town. She spoke Spanish, so I happily let her take over. She was dropped off at the bus station and she instructed the driver to take us to our hotel.

During the drive, I saw what looked like every other 3rd-world country I've been to. It was one dilapidated shop after another, the only ornamentation being advertisements - mostly for Pepsi, Inca Kola, and Cosquena beer. The air was thick with diesel fumes that burned my eyes.

Our hotel was Amaru Hostal. It was here that we met Nicacio, a Peruvian travel agent, middle-aged and missing all of his front teeth. We thought he was part of the hotel staff, but would eventually learn that he merely operated out of the hotel. He sat us down and started going over all of our tour options as we sipped coca tea, which was supposed to relieve symptoms of altitude sickness. (I'd drink gallons of the stuff over the next two weeks.) My defense shields immediately went up, but his prices turned out to be no higher than the prices I had previously checked over the Internet. We would ultimately rely upon Nicacio for most of needs. He was our Gopher, Julie, and Isaac all in one. I think Steve wrote him into his will.

He went to bat for us almost immediately. I had reserved a double room with a shared bath for $16 a night and had received a confirmation. Now the hotel was telling us that the only room available was one with a private bath for $25 a night. Nicacio made the desk clerk find my e-mail, which clearly stated what I wanted. To make things right, he convinced them to move us to a sister hotel a block away, where we were given a room with three beds, a couch, and a private bath, all for $16 a night! Oh, and free breakfast. Nicacio escorted us to our room and then returned to Amaru Hostal to personally retrieve our bags. Truly amazing.

After a long nap, we walked around the city. We exchanged money and then went to the Lan Peru office. I half expected it to be boarded up, but it was open and jammed with weary tourists holding queue numbers in their hands. We mimicked everyone else and took a number of our own, but we soon noticed that no numbers were being called. When a new service window opened, Steve simply stepped forward and was waited on almost immediately. A British couple who got in behind Steve told him they had been waiting for their number to be called for almost an hour. Apparently, the only purpose served by those numbers was to count the number of stupid tourists who entered the Lan Peru office.

Steve was told once again that our money for the bum tickets would have to be refunded by our U.S. travel agent. At least Steve was able to confirm that his return flight the following week was expected to go as planned. I hadn't booked a return flight, so I had already washed my hands of Lan Peru.

We checked in with our trek company, Andean Life, and then went searching for hats and gloves, thinking we would need them on our hike. At a market area away from the central tourist area, we each bought a wool hat that we were assured was made of genuine alpaca wool.

An alpaca is like a llama, but with a shorter neck. It is also the most used word for swindling tourists. The streets near the center of town are lined with vendors of hats, socks, and sweaters -- all saying, "Baby alpaca! Baby alpaca!" to any white face that passes by. Steve made the astute remark that it would be more accurate to say, "Maybe alpaca!"

We ended the day at a little cubbyhole restaurant, where we were the only customers. I had the best mushroom soup of my life as we watched an Hispanic soap opera on the T.V. in the back of the establishment. It seemed to be a cross between Days of Our Lives and Fear Factor.