Quito and Lima
Morning in Quito
We went down for breakfast in the hotel and ran into Caren and Jean at the buffet. We had all decided we were not going to bother with the paltry excursion offered but just hang out at the hotel. Caren and Jean had booked spa appointments and J. R. suggested Janie do the same, but she had been suffering from back pain before we left for the trip and was worried the pressure might aggravate it. Janie decided to use the time to rest up in the room. J. R. headed down to the outdoor pool for some fresh air and do some reading. We had a casual lunch at the hotel and met the Celebrity representative around 3:00 for our trip to the airport. He had a new boarding pass for J. R. but apparently mangled Janie's luggage tag to the point they had to put a new one on at the airport.
The airport experience was fine, save for having to deal with getting a new luggage tag. Luckily the rep explained it in Spanish to the airport employee. We got tired of waiting for everyone else to get checked in so we told him we would head through security ourselves. We tried to find a pharmacy since many of us were still dealing with digestive issues, but there was not one in the international area, so we went to the VIP lounge. It was very crowded but we found some seats in the back and Caren and Jean joined us after awhile. We were offered two free drinks per person but we settled for some Coke Zero instead.
Finally In Lima
It was about a two hour flight from Cusco to Lima and it was uneventful. When we landed, we cleared immigration and customs but then found ourselves waiting with the Celebrity representative for almost fifteen minutes because someone in our group decided to go shopping at the duty free store, leaving us all to wait for them. We were less than pleased and became even less pleased with the long walk to the buses and when Lewis, our guide told us it would be a 40 minute ride to the hotel. We had an early morning tomorrow and didn't understand why they didn't arrange for an airport hotel after we had missed our first night.
The 40 minutes turned into an hour with traffic and we were all pretty peeved when we got to the hotel. Then we learned we had to have our passports scanned. Lewis told us we could just give them to the hotel desk and pick them up in the morning, like that was no big deal and didn't understand why we thought that was a stupid idea. We finally got to our room well after 11PM and then had to wait for our luggage to be brought up. All in all, it was not a great start to our time in Peru.
