13th September - Cusco to Lima

I heard the other 3 arrive back at 2:30am although I still believed that one of the other two would have set an alarm clock. Luckily a couple of us had sleepless nights: Chris as he was feeling ill; me due to the fact that I hadn't spotted the blankets and was therefore trying to keep myself warm huddled between 2 fitted sheets! I heard my watch alarm go off at 5:15am and so I set it for another 15 minutes. 5:30am and it bleeped again. I waited another 10 minutes, thinking that someone had decided that we would get up a little later, only to realise that, yet again, we had gone to sleep on the eve of an important departure without setting an alarm clock!!!!!

Everyone was roused slowly and got ready for the off. We needed to get to the British Consulate in Lima before noon and I wasn't feeling confident that we would make it. Two taxis were booked for 6:15am and we left the hostel just slightly late. We arrived at the airport at about 6:30am and queued for check-in. I had palpitations when the lady disappeared out the back and spoke to someone out there. This had not happened to anyone else and I was worried. Luckily, she returned and asked us if we would like to fly on the 8am flight. Overjoyed at the extra time this would give us in Lima, we agreed and hurriedly organized our domestic departure tax and made our way to the gate. Luckily, the flight boarded on time and we made good time to Lima.

On arrival, Chris and the girls went to a plush hotel for some sleep while James, Jamal and I headed to the British consulate with Lesley (who had been on the same flight) to get Jamal's passport problem sorted. We decided to go into the consulate first to see what exactly we needed. It took a heck of a long time to get through the various levels of security, but eventually we got in and they recommended a photo shop just up the road and explained we would need a load of Peruvian cash.

We headed up to the shop, got the photos taken and then headed back down to the consulate, changing some of our American dollars en route. We returned to the consulate office and handed over all the necessary documents and were told that we could return in an hour to collect the passport. Fantastic!

Lesley had gone for a wander and so James, Jamal and I headed up the road to a street café and sat down for a bite to eat and drink. Luckily we spotted Lesley coming down the street and she joined us at the café. Once the appointed time came, we returned to the consulate and picked up the passport. Joy was unconfined.

We decided that there wasn't much else to see in the area, and so we caught a taxi to the centre of Lima. We sat for a while in the Plaza de Armas before heading around to the San Francisco church. It was explained that the next tour in English was at 3pm and we would have to wait for a little over an hour and a half for it. We decided to find an Internet café to while away the time and had a happy hour reading and sending e-mails.

We returned at 2:30pm and were told that we still couldn't purchase our tickets. We had a quick browse of the shop and then sat in the porch-way, waiting to be allowed to purchase our tickets. At 2:55pm we were just about to go and buy the tickets when we were caught unaware by the early starting "English" tour. I use the term "English" advisedly, as I was told that it was English. The fact that it sounded a lot more like Spanish than English is neither here nor there.

We were first taken up an impressive staircase to an incredible Harry Potter like library. From there we went out onto the choir gallery of the church and then down into the crypt. The dead people of Lima had been buried under the church for quite a number of years until someone had the bright idea of opening a cemetery. Another bright spark then had the idea of counting the number of bodies under the church and, presumably another genius decided it would be good to lay out all the bones in patterns and let tourists pay for the pleasure of seeing them. In total, there were around 35,000 bodies all laid out in pretty patterns for the tourists to see and photograph. Unusual, but interesting, I guess.

Following this, we took a white-knuckle taxi ride back to the hotel through rush hour Lima traffic with a taxi driver with attitude to where the others were staying. Although we tried to go up and see their room, the reception staff almost had kittens at the idea and so we sat downstairs on their fancy sofas. Once everyone was showered and ready, we decided to go to a mid-range restaurant near the Hotel. We got 2 taxis and headed off. I was aware that our taxi driver wasn't 100% sure where he was going when, 5 minutes into the journey, he asked James was San Fernando the name of the street or the restaurant. Watching out the window, I had suspected we were heading in the wrong direction and so I gave directions in English which James translated into Spanish (with the infamous "Say 28th July in Spanish" phrase (James didn't know that they had a street named Avenue 28th July)) and, eventually, luckily, we arrived at the restaurant. We looked at the menu (which we could barely afford) and decided it would do so we waited outside for the others. 20 minutes nothing. Half an hour later and we decide to return to the hotel. We arrived just as the other taxi driver told the other half of the group that he was calling the police. Apparently the hotel had given him the wrong directions and had got lost. Our guys refused to pay, insisting that the hotel was liable. The hotel wasn't paying. All good fun. Lesley was amused, but to us, it was just another day.

Eventually, the taxi problem sorted itself out and we went and got a couple of different taxis to the centre of Lima and dined at the cheap and cheerful Restaurant Machu Picchu. The food was average, the décor terrible, but it was the last night and all was well.

Once we had finished, we got taxis out to the airport. After a bit of argey-bargey about the queue and Delta's inability to work out where to tell people to start queuing, we started to check-in. Jamal got into trouble for not having his "Get out of Peru Free" card while the fact that I was missing my flight ticket and Chris had a spare one that he shouldn't have had caused 20 minutes of complication at the desk. Chris expressed surprise that the man at the entrance to the Departure Lounge had been able to read the magnetic strip on his ticket. Chris's tickets had gotten wet during the Inca Trail and half of his magnetic strip had stuck to the face of the ticket behind. This should have been a clue that the man wasn't reading the magnetic strip. The fact that he was also using a machine that seemed to scan using flashing lights (which, to the best of my knowledge, aren't much use in reading magentic patterns) should have maybe also been a clue that it wasn't the magnetic strip but the bar code sticker that the man was scanning. If an arts student had made that mistake, it would be understandable, but a graduate in Electronic Engineering from one of the UK's top universities???? I won't even mention the previous incident when Chris told James that he needn't bother with the bedside light as it didn't work and James then explained how certain electrical products needed to be "plugged in" before they can be expected to work.... Anyhow, I had also expected Immigration to kick up a fuss about the missing "Get out of Peru Free" card, but they didn't and so we made it to the flight without too much fuss. Delta had even managed to get 4 of us sitting together and the other 2 within sight!