Maysa and Zach Travel to Peru: "Let's Blog this Sh*t!"

Wow, this was really going to be a good one. Then, the day happened. After a massive layover in San Salvador followed by a nice flight in which we had nearly a full row of Brazilians, we arrived in Lima at around 8:00 local time (CDT in the US). We filled out the customs form incorrectly, and consequently got "busted" for bringing children's vitamins, sunscreen, medical supplies and children's winter clothing into the country. They could've confiscated everything and hit us with some heavy fines, but instead charged us US$50, which was far superior to the alternative. At the time I'm writing this, we're still in the airport in Lima, with our full cart of baggage in a coffee shop that we can't check for 2 more hours, which is 2 hours and 40 minutes before our flight. Since I haven't slept more than 10 minutes at a time in over 36 hours, you'll have to forgive my run-on sentences, lack of proper grammar, punctuation, and paragraph structure. Oh yeah, things won't exactly be in chronological order, either. After clearing customs, and getting our first stamps on our US passports (yay!), we had dinner in the food court at the airport, which was alright. Maysa had some very good chicken noodle soup, while I had lomo saltado, a Peruvian staple. Back to the baggage claim before the customs fiasco. One of the first things that came out on the conveyor belt was our totally awesome US Air Force footlocker, followed shortly by what I can only describe as our Mr. Magoo suitcase. I noticed some stickers on it that weren't there when we checked our luggage, but it was the same size, make and model of one of the suitcases we were still waiting on to come out of the claim. Upon checking the tags, it sure wasn't ours, and it belonged to the only other tall white guy on our flight, who happened to own not one but TWO of these suitcases that were exactly identical to ours! I commented on the coincidence of this to which he replied, "Yeah, I was just about to tell you how ugly your luggage was." I told him, "Hey, the price was right at Thrift Town," which as I found out five seconds later, was where he got his Mr. Magoo suitcases. If he had said he was going to Cusco to volunteer with the woman he was with, my head probably would have exploded. He only lives there, so my head remains intact, though none too clear at the present moment. Keeping with the present moment theme, I'm currently in a little coffee shop called 4D across from Starbucks in the airport, and the waiter here helped me steal WiFi from them. I was surprised at this seeing as how they looked none too thrilled with our massive luggage cart coming in their doors and the glacial pace of service. Of course, there's no problem with this pace of service, seeing as how Maysa's having a nice little nap right now, and our flight doesn't leave for 4 and a half more hours. Back to this sweet food court. So far, I've been managing with my Spanish speaking, but while we were eating, we came across this girl, and I have no idea what the hell she's doing in Peru. She knew next to no Spanish, didn't know where to go to make a phone call, find the ATM (probably by following the signs that say 'ATM'), or carry ANY cash with her while traveling. I felt like a seasoned veteran after seeing her. I think she'll make it, though; about 15 minutes after sending her in the right direction, I saw her with some food, which means she was able to get some money and convert it into soles, as that's all the food court accepts. Another thing about the food court, which consists of Papa John's, McDonald's, Subway, and a few other places; they secure the hell outta that place! Not just regular security, like a scene out of Friday After Next. "Top Flight Security of the World, Craig!" These guys aren't having any shenanigans in their food court. They have Nextels and they don't have to take sh*t from noooobody. They've also got some fun signs guiding you to the emergency exits here, which I'll post pictures for at the end. At dinner in the food court, we asked our server, a very polite and cordial young man, where a good place to sit down and relax for a while would be, as we didn't see any such places around. He said there really weren't, except for the Chapel. Great. We head to the chapel with our massive cart o' luggage, to be pictured soon, to have some lady tell us we can't go in there with all of the bags. Screw that, lady, you're eating in here! She loosened up a bit when she found out we weren't there to sleep, even though given the chance that's what we both would've done. In any event, she was much too chatty and inquisitive, so we took off and headed to our present coffee shop. Well, that's going to be it for now. This one really had promise, but I managed to goof it up, oh well. We should be at our host family's place in Cusco in about 7 hours, where I plan on sleeping for at least 10 hours before doing anything whatsoever. When Maysa feels like it, I'll have her post an update of our own. Get some sleep for us, we need it!

- Z