Tuesday, 24 December 2024

Cusco to Lima

After last night's late arrival from Machu Picchu I am not quite ready for a 4:30am wake-up--but wake up we must in order to finish packing, have breakfast, and be ready for our 6:30am ride to the Cusco airport. I scheduled the ride for this early because it took almost an hour to get from the airport to the hotel on the day we arrived. Turns out that this morning traffic is much lighter and we make it to the airport in about 20 minutes and have lots of sit-around time before our flight leaves.

Waiting for Take-Off at Cusco Airport

Flying weather is great and I have wonderful views of the varied Peruvian landscapes during the short flight.

At noon we check into the Wyndham Costa Del Sol Lima Airport Hotel, where we left our luggage four days ago. We will be checking out at 9pm for tomorrow morning's 12:50am flight to Los Angeles and Phoenix. We need to rearrange our suitcases to distribute the weight properly and we certainly didn't 't want to sit in the airport for those nine hours. We have time for a nap and dinner at the hotel before going across the street to the airport.

We are checked in right away and get through security and immigration quickly. We are then taken to a private airport lounge that accepts business class passengers on Lantam's international flights. There is lots of free food and drink and comfortable chairs.

Wednesday, 25 December 2024

Lima to Los Angeles to Phoenix to Tucson

There is a bit of a seating kerfluffle when we board our 12:50am Lantam/Delta flight to Los Angeles. Will and I reserved adjoining full-bed seats in business class, but for some reason I am assigned to a different seat on the other side of the wide-body plane, without any prior notice. Fortunately, once we are on board the cabin staff finds me a seat much closer to Will. We enjoy a hearty dinner as soon as we reach cruising altitude for this nine-hour flight. After dinner I am soon asleep for several hours and wake to an omelet breakfast.

We land in Los Angeles on time shortly after 6am (there is a three-hour time difference from Peru). We thought that Christmas would be a quiet travel day, but we were very wrong. LAX is packed with passengers but there aren't enough employees around. We get through immigration and customs pretty quickly, and our luggage is automatically transferred to our Delta flight to Phoenix. Will's wheelchair assistant walks us over to the Delta terminal, fortunately right next door to the International Arrivals Hall, where we are transferred to a different wheelchair service. Because there is such a shortage of workers here, we wait over two hours for someone to take us through security to the gate.

Our Delta first class flight leaves and arrives on time, but the flight is so short there isn't time for any special first class service. We have only a short wait for our pre-reserved Groome Shuttle which takes 90 minutes to drop us off at Twin Peaks Road and Tiffany Loop. Our friend Anita is waiting for us and we have dinner at Dove Mountain Bistro, a Chinese restaurant on Tangerine and Thornydale. We are soon home at Mountain View and ready to retire after roughly 23 hours of traveling since we left the airport hotel in Lima. 

This is the final blog from our 21-day trip. In spite of a few bugaboos, we had a really marvelous time and shared many exciting experiences. I hope you have enjoyed traveling with us on LFLatSea. I especially appreciate the kind folks who responded to all this trivia. LFLatSea is ready for a rest now, but I promise to return soon with information about our next journey at sea.