I Made It To Cusco!

The flight from Miami to Lima was very long. Not longer than my layover in Miami, but it seemed like it. Perhaps it was my nerves that made it seem so long… hmmm, yes I think so. The airplane was very nice. The seats were comfy and there was a lot of room between them. Everyone had their very own screen set in the back of the seat in front of them. You could watch a movie or a tv show or play a game or listen to music or track the plane’s position. Lots of options! There were so many movies to choose from that I didn’t even scroll through them all. They had Traitor, Burn After Reading, The Duchess, High School Musical 3, The Women, Garden State, Never Been Kissed, and easily 20 others. Tv shows had lots of options too. They had episodes from The Office, Scrubs, M*A*S*H, and several others. Game options were like Tetris, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, various card games and more. Lots of music, but I didn’t mess with that; I had my ipod. You could also watch a little airplane icon move slowly along a dotted line between Miami and Lima. It also showed our altitude and speed, as well as the external temperature. Oh, and they fed us on the flight. I had pasta with carbonara sauce, which was very good. And a Milky Way, which wasn’t too bad either. :)

I was seated next to a woman who spoke only Spanish, was very afraid of flying, and Catholic. This is all I found out about her. Seated all across the aisle from me was a team of young doctors on their way to do a 10 day medical mission trip in remote villages around Cusco. They were very nice.

I did get a bit upset on the flight. I was thinking; which I have decided to stop doing. I was thinking about how long I was going to here and how far away I was if anything went wrong and well anyway I worked myself into a bit of a tizzy thinking about how I couldn’t do this and how stupid I was for even thinking I could and so I started crying. Just a few tears at first, but I really really hate it when I start crying and so then I cry more because I’m crying. Quite the vicious cycle really. Anyway.

In Lima, I went through Immigration, with no problem. I now have a super cool Peru stamp in my passport. The guy who stamped my passport first ask if I was travelling alone and then told me I was very brave and to be safe. This did very little for my already shaky confidence. Then I got my baggage and got in line to go through customs. Its quite the ingenious system they have. You hand your papers to the lady, she asks if you have anything to declare, you say no, she says press the button. Then the magic button decides if you have to be searched or not by turning on the red or the green light. The magic button was nice to me; it turned on the green light and I instructed to proceed to the exit. Once you get past customs there is a big lobby like area that anyone is allowed to enter, although the part just past customs is sectioned off. I stayed in the sectioned off part until I saw my taxi driver. He had a large white board with my name written on it in big blue block letters. He was very nice. We found his taxi and he loaded all my bags while we attempted to talk. He spoke some English, and I speak some Spanish, so, together, we were able to talk a bit. The drive from the airport to Carlos and Jessica’s house was very … interesting. It reminded me of a racing video game. Not that he was a bad driver. It was just very fast and there were cars switching lanes constantly and cutting people off and no traffic laws that I could see. Oh, and random people that decide to run across several lanes of heavy traffic. But we made it safely. Carlos and Jessica were very nice. Their daughter was very sweet. She likes English a lot and knows all the songs from High School Musical. She was maybe five? I gave her a stuffed parrot which she liked a lot and named all his colors in English. I slept in her bed, just a few hours. I had to be at the airport fairly early. The same taxi driver picked me up. Carlos and Jessica had arranged for him to pick me from the airport and take me back. I checked my bags, paid a tax of some sort, went through security and got to my gate in plenty of time.

The flight from Lima to Cusco was pretty short, although I did fall asleep so maybe it wasn’t as short as it seemed. We were flying through clouds every time I woke up. I was sad that I couldn’t see the landscape better, but I was so tired I’m not sure I could have stayed awake to admire it anyway. We landed in Cusco, no problem. I got my bags and just outside the doors was a smiling man with my name on a white board. He was the representative from Maximo Nivel there to pick me and another girl up from the airport and get us to our house. He got us a taxi and took me and the other girl, Katie- she’s from England, to Maximo Nivel and then to The Family House where I’ll be staying for the next 12 weeks.

The Family House is quite nice, although my room is on the third floor. Which wouldn’t bad, except the altitude leaves me rather breathless after the climb. I guess I should feel lucky that that’s my only problem with the altitude. We’re up over 11,ooo feet and some people get altitude sickness pretty bad. None of the others that just arrived and are in my house are sick either though. I haven’t been able to count yet, but there are several of us living here. Six of us just moved in. I’m sharing my room with two of the other new girls. Katie from England and Audrey from Seattle. They are both nice. Katie is here for 6 weeks and Audrey for 8. Katie hasn’t had any formal Spanish classes before, but she spent a month in Spain and so knows enough Spanish to get around without much difficulty. Audrey is quite good. She is reading Twilight in Spanish. She was just in Chile and Argentina working on her Spanish. Our room is fairly good sized. I’m really horrible with dimensions, but maybe 8x16. We have a bathroom connected to our room with a shower that has its own electric water heater. The staff here is very nice. The food is great. Seriously, I’m gonna gain weight here. Not even kidding. Lunch was my first meal here and it was so good. It was a soup and it had rice in it and chicken and spices that I can’t even describe but it was so so good. For dinner we had some sort of pepper stuffed with who knows what but it was wonderful. Very very spicy. But delicious. And served with some variety of potato that was seasoned perfectly. Mmmm!

That’s all tonight. I’m exhausted. Even though I took a couple really long naps. I’ll post this tomorrow night, hopefully.