Anyhow, then another connection in Quebec City that takes us into Ottawa around 7:00pm.
Saturday morning, we were on our 11:00am bus and it departed right on schedule for our eight hour trip from Huaraz to Lima. I had booked us well in advance so that we could get the front row seats on the upper level with a nice big windshield to enjoy the views from.
Heading downhill.
The tinted windows make the pics a bit off color.
Yep, that's our road down there.
I took a video for you...
Is that big boulder about to fall on the road??
Watch out for the livestock.
Scenery along the way.
It seemed like the downhill would never end.
The Pan American Highway coming into Lima is a nightmare. We fought the mayhem of traffic and people for about an hour before we arrived at the Plaza Norte Bus Terminal.
We walked through the big Plaza Norte Shopping Mall, and boy it was packed just like it was the day before Christmas!
Made our way out of the traffic and onto a side street where we called an Uber to get us to the airport 5 kms (3 miles) away.
Arrived at the airport with lots of time to spare.
Not impressed with Lima airport. We've been in a lot of airports and some are fantastic (Seoul) and some are terrible (Honolulu). And others in between. Lima ranks near the bottom. No drinking water available after security so you are forced to buy overpriced (and in U.S. dollars!) bottled water. Only 1 hour of free internet time. No foreign currency exchange after security either, which is a new one for us. We have some soles left over and I was going to get them changed. I couldn't go back through security or I would be charged a $30 USD fee! Now, I have to go to a specialty place in Ottawa. Fortunately. it's not that much out of our way and I might end up with a better exchange rate anyhow.
And, we had planned on using our one of our free airport lounge passes here in Lima, but it turns out the lounges at this airport suck! There is one that is not bad but it's for domestic flights only. The other one for international flights has one drink free limit and a three hour time limit. Most of them are unlimited drinks and four hour maximum. We decided not to waste one of our free passes at this particular airport.
And so we sit. We found a quiet spot in one of the lower boarding gates that isn't being used and most of the time we are the only ones here.
But, it's time to get going! See you back in Canada!
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Bon voyage. Having just finished our around the world trip that included 13 flights in 5 weeks, I don't envy your flight plan. The differences in airports can be pretty stark. Last year, we had an unexpected 8 hour wait at the Quito, Ecuador Airport that verged on pleasant---new food court and 3 nice lounges with good wifi where we could use Priorty Pass. On our recent trip, Changi Airport in Singapore took top honors. The Sofia, Bulgaria airport--not so much. Wishing you safe travels with no snafus.
ReplyDeleteWe don't envy it either but it is also part of travel and we love to travel so we just suck it up. Sounds like the Quito Airport would have been a nice place to have had to wait out those 8 hours. Quito, was where we would have originally landed in Ecuador had we not cancelled at the last minute due to the unrest that they had three or four weeks ago. Yes, we liked the Singapore Airport as well. We stopped there at the end of May as we made our way to Australia.
DeleteOur travel day went well, more on that in the next post.
Love the cover page. It always amazes me when I travel...one minute I'm eating breakfast at home and the next two to three hours I'm in a totally different environment. I traveled a lot for my job and it was especially nice to fly from Phoenix to coastal cities in summer. The coolness was extraordinary and marveled at the smell of ocean. I love red eye flights not only because they are cheap but also you can sleep.
ReplyDeleteThank you Rita, it was definitely a fun road to drive on and the scenery was fantastic.
DeleteWe don't normally sleep well on airplanes, and on this particular flight I didn't do too bad and managed to get some sleep but Kevin said he didn't get any sleep and his legs were very uncomfortable and cramped.
And another country under your belt. Have a safe flight back to Canada!
ReplyDeleteYes, and I think we are going to have to come back and visit this country. We really enjoyed ourselves here and we only saw a very small part of it.
DeleteOur trip back went well, thanks. :-)
Great video, every time you panned the camera down over a corner I got a little spooked! You should do a list of the airports (in your opinion of course), good through bad, and the reasons and quirks for each. I think that would be helpful for people. How long are you back in Ottawa for? Waiting for snow? :)
ReplyDeleteThere were definitely some very steep sections on that road. I think it must have taken at least an hour to two hours to drive from the top of the mountain to the bottom. Like Kevin said, we never thought the downhill was ever going to end. The scenery was amazing though.
DeleteYes, that would be an idea, it would just be hard to do though because some of the airports that we have visited were from quite a while ago and things can change a lot over the years.
And so ends a wonderful trip to Peru! It was great following along. Lots of great pictures.
ReplyDeleteGlad that you enjoyed following along through our posts and our pictures. We certainly enjoyed our visit here and I am sure that we will be back.
DeleteWhat a ride .....the bus trips, the scenery and the entire time you explored a small but endearing part of Peru! No doubt you will be back for more! Thank you for taking us arm chair travelers along.
ReplyDeleteYep, it certainly has been a bit of a ride over the last 4 or so days. The bus ride was fantastic with all the beautiful mountain scenery that we had to drive through. We have no doubt that we will be back to see more of Peru in the future.
DeleteWe are so glad that you have enjoyed our adventures through our blog and pictures. :-)