Peru - Day 1

On March 16th, the day of the crazy snowstorms on the East Coast, I moved out of New York! My flight was around 7am, from NYC to San Diego. I was a bit worried of the forecast, but confident my flight would get out.... I received at call from American Airlines around 1am telling me that my flight was cancelled. Ack!!!! But they moved me to an even earlier flight at 6:15am... Good thing for me the flight left on time. It had just started snowing, but wasn't very strong. Lucky me got upgraded to first class on both legs of the trip (Whoo-hoo!). And I arrived in San Diego by 11am! (btw, my neighbor from St. Louis to San Diego drank at least 5 gin-and-tonics on that trip! 5!!! In the morning!!!)

I received many messages from New Yorkers checking if I made it out. I guess they ended up having a massive storm with flights getting cancelled left and right that day. Whew.

It was ESSENTIAL that I made it to San Diego early since we were flying out to Peru from LAX that very night! So imagine how I felt, when I got a call at 12:30pm from Copa Airlines informing me that our plane for that evening was switched to a smaller one. The person wanted us to postpone our trip by half a day! No Way!! If we did that, we would get into Lima around midnight! Our original itinerary was to get in around 3pm, so we had half a day to explore and adjust ourselves to the culture. Anyways, the lady wasn't terribly thrilled with me when I said no, and told us to get to LAX extra early to ensure we didn't get bumped from that flight. Ack!

Around 7pm, Neill came over, and the three of us drove down to LAX... We stood in line for the Panamanian carrier Copa Airlines for a while, but managed to get seats on the 1:30 am (YUP, AM!) flight out! 6 hours later, we were in Panama. The airport is very interesting there, all the stores sell electronics! I mean, you can buy a 40" flat screen TV from the airport, or Ipods, or Wiis. An hour later, we were on our second leg. And then 4 hours later, we were in Lima, Peru.... (That's right, in a day and a half, I have been on 4 planes from NYC to SD to Panama to Lima. Craziness.)

In the plane (and not very awake) At Tocumen International Airport (Panama)

We spent an afternoon and evening in Lima before heading off to Cusco the next day. We stayed at a very nice place called Hostel El Patio in the Miraflores neighborhood of Lima. I would highly recommend this place. The people are so nice, and it's pretty cute with flowers everywhere. And it's in a safe area within walking distance of all sorts of shopping, food, the ocean, and even some ruins!

Check out the cool old-fashioned key to our room.
Neill in front of our room Welcome!

We were starving when we got there! So we went to a little place recommended by one of our guidebooks called Rincon Chami. This place was fantastic! What a great first place to eat at!

Pisco Sour (a Peruvian drink, super yummy!)
Dave drinking the Peruvian cerveza, Cristal
Neill and his Cristal Check out this spread! (Food and drinks, all for just $24!!!!)

Arroz con Pollo, Chicarrones de Pescado, Lomo Saltado, Tacu Tacu

Some views around a Plaza in Miraflores

We then took a walk to the ruins in Miraflores, called Huaca Pucllana. Pretty cool to see some ruins in middle of an urban setting. It was closed when got there, so I don't have any pictures of it (hmmm, but Neill might).

That first night was an early night, as we were all exhausted from the flights. AND we had a 6:30am flight out to Cusco the next morning.