Peru - Getting there

I arrived in Calgary on Friday night at about 10pm. The drive was tough due to heavy rains. Although it was the start of the Labor Day weekend, the traffic wasn't as bad as it could have been due to the weather.

On Saturday, my alarm went off at 5am. It would be an understatement to say that I found it difficult to get up, but I did. Calgary was still cold and rainy. We got to the airport just after 6am. Check in was easy and U.S. Customs was a breeze. I've never seen those officers waiting for 'customers' before. We grabbed breakfast then waited to board. I was so tired, I never even felt the plane take-off! I woke up about 20 minutes into the flight then fell back to sleep for an hour. I had no interest in TV and read the complementary national newspaper instead. 

We arrived in Houston after 3 hours and 40 minutes. Air Canada didn't serve any food so we looked for a place to eat and ate at the food court at Panda Express. There weren't a lot of restaurant choices. Our 3 hour layover went quickly, walking the long corridors and browsing in shops.

The next leg of the journey was with United (my least favourite airline) and it was 6 and a half hours long. The plane was bigger and I had an aisle seat again thank goodness. I thought I might nap but I watched 3 excellent movies instead - 'Inside Out', 'Man Up', and an Indian subtitled movie with a great little song and dance number at the end. We got supper as well as a 10 pm snack. My restless legs didn't kick in until about 10 or so, so that was good.

In Lima, we had to first go through Customs, then wait (a long time) for our luggage, then wait in another line, then put our suitcases through a scanner. That whole process took almost an hour. I was glad to see the GAdventures sign with our names on just outside the secure area.  There were 5 of us being picked up and the ride to the hotel was pretty wild. There was lots of traffic despite it being after midnight and the driver had many of what I thought would be near misses. Traffic wove in and out of lanes and we seemed to be constantly turning left or right.

Our hotel is in the Miraflores area. It's an older hotel. I am beat. I will sleep.