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Retun to Ecuador 1999

Peru 2000
We fly to Lima

April 9th Sunday
Mass and then brunch at the Magic Bean with Ralph, Andy, Rachael and Ruby. We walked around Parque El Ejido again. Met Fritz and Christa on the street. They had not confirmed their flight in time and had to wait in Quito for an extra week to get home. We then walked back to the house and packed our bags for the flight to Lima. This time we have to take everything with us as we will not be coming back to Quito. Adiós a Ecuador.

Our flight leaves Quito at 10pm and we arrive at Chavez International airport in Lima around midnight. We had arranged to be picked up by Hada tours for transport to our hotel $38.00 US. Very expensive but because it was at night and we did not know the city we decided it was a wise thing to do. A young man (a gringo who worked in Lima ) on the plane had offered to help us get a taxi. We really appreciated his offer. Such nice people we meet when traveling. If we had known how easy it would be it would have been a lot cheaper.

Sheraton Lima Hotel in Lima Centro.
It is election night in Peru and as we approach Lima Centro we encounter many police road blocks. Some of the police are women and on motorcycles wearing very tight pants and high heel boots.

There is a big crowd of people filling the square in front of the hotel. Toledo, one of the contestants for president has his headquarters in the hotel. It has not been a decisive vote between him and Fujimori, the encumbent, and many people are protesting. The van backs up to the door and we are hustled into the hotel. No problem. We sit in the loby and arrange to take a city tour the next morning with the same agency. $30.00 US each

We check into our room and then come back down to the lobby to see what is going on. Things are pretty quiet but there are still some press around. Finally to bed.

April 10th Monday
City tour with Hada tours. Good guide. Mostly a walking tour in the old city.

Then out to the Pacific to the Parque del Amor. There is a huge statue of a man and a woman embracing in the park. The tour guide dropped us off in Miraflores so we could look around. This area is relatively safe. We had lunch, walked around and then found a hostal (Residencial El Castillo, Diez Canseco 580) where we made a reservation for the night of the 25th of April, the day we would return to Lima on our way home. We had dinner and then took a taxi back to the Sheraton in the Old City. We packed to be ready for an early flight to Cuzco the next morning.

April 11th Tuesday
It is early morning and we are ready and waiting in front of the hotel. It is getting late and there is no sign of the Hada Tours van. We had made arrangements with them to pick us up at the Sheraton and to take us to the airport. We are worried we will miss our flight to Cuszo. Finally a man comes over and asks us our name. He was from Hada tours and had been waiting for a while but he was in a car and we were looking for a van. The traffic was very heavy and he took a lot of the back streets and managed to get to the airport in lots of time for our flight. There was to be an agent from Hada tours at the airport to meet us so when a woman approached us with information about places to stay in Cuzco we presumed it was her. Before we left we learned it was another agent and the one from Hada tours had not shown up. We had paid a lot of money for this and were disappointed in Angermeyers for setting up this expensive arrangement. Buyer beware.

We are finally on our way. It is a short flight over many mountain ranges and then a sharp turn into the narrow and not very long Cuzco valley. The landing is abrupt but very smooth. These guys know what they are doing to fly in these mountains.

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Homepage | Cuenca | Peru 2000 | Cuzco | Inca Trail | Machu Picchu | Lake Titicaca | Arequipa | Colca Canyon | Lima
Retun to Ecuador 1999