31 Hours of Insanity

It´s a good thing Riobamba was so relaxing, because the leg our journey that followed was completely ridiculous...

We had initially planned on heading to Cuzco for two weeks (to embark on a 9-day trek) at the end of March. But in Baños we discovered that there were two more people who wanted to join the trek, if it could be moved up a bit. No problem. In Guaranda we discovered that this plan might fall through, so everything was up in the air. Once in Riobamba it seemed like it might be on again, if we could get to Cuzco on the 14th. After much fretting and rearranging of plans, the trek was back on for the 17th. Hoorah! Now we just had to get to Peru.

Option 1. Flying
This was the option we had hoped for all along. Getting to Cuzco requires first going to Lima, which is a long way away from Ecuador. Check a map. A direct bus from Guayaquil takes 24 hours. A 2 hour flight is preferable, hands down. Both guide books and online forums speak of magical cheap, frequent flights from Guayaquil to Lima. We could not find these flights. Online searches were useless. Flights from Guayaguil to Panama City to Lima?! Guayaquil to Santiago to Lima?! Round trip flights for thousands of dollars...Completely insane and unbelievably frustrating.

Option 2. Taking a bus
We did not want to take a bus. 24 hours on a bus sounds horrible. But the bus only costs $60 (one-way). We think about the positives: it would be direct, border crossing procedures would be taken care of, and we could see more of Peru! It wouldn´t be THAT bad, would it? Of course, there´s no way to book the bus online, and the website of the bus company has zero information about schedules or booking or anything. Our Lonely Planet book, as well as interenet forums, say buses leave daily at 2 pm. We decide to bite the bullet and take a bus. Perhaps we´ll fly back if it´s horrible.

Of course, getting to Guayaquil is the first step in this whole process, so Wedesday morning we depart on the 6 am bus. The Most Annoying Radio Program Ever blasts in our ears as the bus bumps along though construction. At one point we stop for about 20 minutes waiting for construction, but we remained in high spirits. We were on our way to Peru! 5 hours later we pulled into the Guayaquil bus terminal, which is really nice, and wander around looking for the Ormeño office. When we get to the office it is closed. Some people nearby direct us to go outside, so we do, and we are told that the bus only leaves at 11:30. It´s 11:45. While wondering what to do, we see the bus that we should be on drive by. It looks nice. We later find out that the bus on Thursday is booked, and that if we want to go on Friday we have to buy tickets now. A Friday bus would put us in Lima on Saturday, where we would probably have to spend the night and get a flight to Cuzco on Sunday. Sunday is too late. Impossible.

A taxi takes us to the airport, where a airline agent tells us he can only sell us expensive tickets, and that we should look online for cheaper deals. We spend time at the overpriced computer hub cursing in frustration until we finally find flights that are still to expensive, but not unbearably expensive. Having seemingly no other options, we buy the tickets out of exasperation. The flight leaves at 5:30. Oh, but wait, now we have to find a way to get to Cuzco! Searching for Cuzco flights is even more ridiculous. These are flights that shouldn´t be more than $75 each way, and we can´t find anything under $200 (one-way). One website has cheap flights, but when Leif goes to book them, it says they´re no longer available. The ticket agent says he can only sell us tickets for $400 round trip. What the hell is going on?!?! Time is running out to get through customs and security, so we give up and decide to try finding tickets in Lima. We go through security, find a little bar, split two beers between the three of us and watch a soccer game.

On a high note, the LAN flight that we took to Lima was the nicest plane I´ve EVER been on. I wish we were flying LAN back to the States...

My excitement over the nice plane ends in Lima, where upon arrival in the airport we immediately begin our search for tickets to Cuzco. A woman at one of the airline desks says she can sell us tickets for $180 round trip. Not horrible. But there are these other business-y looking guys who are checking prices on cell phones saying they can get us cheaper tickets. "Go ask," they say, "but we can get you cheaper tickets." They offer $140 round trip. They also seem a little shady. And they say we have to come to their office, which is 5 minutes away on foot. We spend some time discussing what to do--cheap tickets would be nice, but getting ripped off in some kind of shady scheme does not sound nice. The woman at the desk says those guys are there all the time. We hesitantly agree to go with them.

After 5 uneasy minutes of walking with all of our stuff through the dark, crowded streets of Lima, over a highway overpass and through a parking lot, we come to what does indeed appear to be a travel agency. It COULD be an elaborate hoax, but it looks an awful lot like a travel agency. We talk to a different man behind a desk, who is very nice, and tells us the cheapest tickets he can find for us are $171 round trip. $9 of savings. The flight leaves at 5:30 in the morning, which we prefer, so we book the tickets and feel even more uneasy as we hand over all of the cash that we have (credit cards are not accepted). The first guys escorts us back to the airport, and we immediately head to the counter to check in. Turns out the tickets are legit.

Rather than paying for a taxi to take us to a hostal, where we´ll sleep for 4 hours before hiring another taxi to take us back, we decide to spend the night in the airport. By the time we checked in it was 8ish, so we didn´t have THAT long to wait...we found some less-than-delicious food court fare and played cards for a while. Around midnight we cleared security and were delighted to find a quiet gate with seats without armrests. Not a bad spot to get a couple hours of sleep...

At 4:45 we board our flight. At 5:30 they said the flight was delayed. At 6:10 the flight was cancelled. We got of the plane. We got our luggage. We sat in the shapeless mass of people was supposed to be forming a line. For what? Nobody knew. Some amount of time later a girl told Mike we were waiting for new boarding passes for a 9:20 flight. If we didn´t get passes for that flight, we had to get in another line to get passes for a 9:25 flight. When an airline agent finally comes to the desk, everyone mobs forward, yelling. There is no order. The whole situation is stupid.

We, of course, do not get passes for the 9:20 flight, so we make our way back up to the check-in area to get in the new line. This new line that we get in is really just a line of the same people that were crowded down in the other "line". The people who have boarding passes need to check in their luggage. The people without passes (us) need to GET passes. The line is insanely long, and as we wait everyone just cuts up to the front, anyway. We are disgusted. The time approaches 9:00 and we are still in line. By the time we get to the ticket counter, we are last in line. Everyone else has been issued passes for the 9:20ish flights. We get tickets for 11:50. Whatever. At least now we can go find some coffee.

Miraculously, our flight from Lima leaves on time, and an hour later we land safely in Cuzco. We hire a ridiculously expensive taxi, which takes us to the hotel we´ve decided on. The book lists it a budget choice, but when we arrive we´re told that rooms cost $40 each. No way. In a sleepy daze, we wander the narrow, cobblestone streets of the San Blas neighborhood, and stumble into a hostal that fits our budget. We find food. We return to the hostal at 3:30 in the afternoon and pass out. We sleep for 17 hours.