Apr 28 2025
Misadventures alone in a country where I don’t speak the language…
Landed safely in Lima this morning. No troubles getting through immigration or customs. No problems taking a shuttle to Miraflores. Walked my ass down to the ocean and dipped in my toes.
I’ve missed my ocean. Growing up in the San Francisco Bay I sort of took for granted that the ocean was right there. After 14 years in the Midwest I’ve missed it. I miss the sight, smell, and sound. Was nice to touch base with it again.
Walked back up to Kennedy park, watched the stray cats do their cat thing. Then I got breakfast. Life Achievement Unlocked: navigating a sit down restaurant not only without using English, without using a language I actually know. Turns out you can BS your way through a lot of scenarios based on context. Was all puffed up and proud of myself for that. And then I got back to the airport. Balloon Pop.
They were stupid late getting us boarded for our flight to Cusco. In spite of English being the international language of civillian aviation the gate and flight crews didn’t speak a word of it. Eventually we boarded, hours late, without me knowing why. And then we sat there. And sat there. And sat there. And sat there. I eventually fell asleep. I was woken up nearly 2 hours after we should have departed and informed the flight was cancelled. No further information on what to do, where to go. Followed the locals on the flight and that’s how I got my checked baggage back. But they scattered after that. So I made my way back to the check in counter. They fobbed me off on the ticketing counter. The line for the ticketing counter was looooooooong. Rumor in the line was part of the ATC system went down and they wiped half the flight list.
After a while a mob of angry Peruvians turned the line into a mob protest of their countries ATC system. Insert police and reporters. I had a front row seat to that. It was still going on when I made it to the front of the line and was told I’d be put on standby tomorrow. By the point I had long given up any pretense of “I’m in your country and you guys clearly prefer Spanish, so I’ll try to figure it out”, and moved full on to “speak English, dammit! I know you know it!”
Another airline made it known to those of us in line that they still had available tickets for late flights to Cusco tonight, and the ATC system had come back up. $250 later was booked on yet another flight to Cusco today. When I approached the ticket agent I just said “can you get me to Cusco, tonight?” The answer was yes, the cost quoted was $250. And given the comparison to Nepal was my flights between Kathmandu and Lukla, where I spent $550 for the helicopter trip up and $200 for one of 14 seats on a twin turboprop down, $250 didn’t seem outrageous to me so I paid it without paying attention to the level of service. Turns out that was basically for premium economy. I ended up having the entire front row of the plane to myself, and the service was by a large margin nicer than any other flight I’ve had on this trip.
Made the flight to Cusco in 45 minutes.
I had rented an apartment for the week here, and in an effort to get here before the lady who owns it went to bed I sprinted out of the airport and told the first taxi driver I saw “plaza de armas, 10 Soles, si or no?” It was immediately si, so I overpaid, but whatever. 10 soles is $2.80 at today’s exchange rate. Also, everything I had read was don’t use the taxi drivers that hang out at the airport because they’re sketchy. But, whatever. Dude got me where I wanted to go rápido, and I sprinted up to my apartment (a block from the plaza) and got checked in. Mission accomplished.
Thoughts so far. Lima isn’t really a city that interests me as a tourist. Granted, I barely scratched the surface of it, but it seems more geared towards the type of people whose ideal vacation is cruise ships and fancy hotels. Not someone like me who rolled up all “I clearly look like I’m going to be wearing these clothes every day for 3 weeks while I roll around in mud and potentially animal shit”. Cusco, on the other hand, definitely seems more in line with my preferences as a destination.
