The journey here

The journey was fine from Toronto to Lima; quite painless in fact, I couldn’t get any sleep on the plane but whatcha going to do. When I landed in Lima, however, things got a little trickier. I had been told that my baggage was going to be transferred all the way to Cusco for me, so I wouldn’t need to claim it and then re-check it back in once in Lima. This sounded good to me because my bag is about the size of me and fully packed. So Once I was in Lima it turned out that what I had been told earlier was in fact incorrect. So like everyone else on the flight I stood to collect my bag. As I was standing to get my bag I was hit with a wave of feeling very sick, I had to find a bathroom and quick, otherwise I was scared I was going to throw-up all over the floor. I don’t know what caused it, airplane food...tiredness…or maybe it was the fact that Lima felt like a sauna and I was wearing my Canadian winter layers. I ended up being fine, I just had to put some cold water on my face and conveniently enough by the time I came out my bag was just being placed on to the conveyer belt. Okay so that was stage one complete. I then had to wheel my bag to find the TACA check in, so there I was wheeling it up and down the Lima airport looking for anything that said TACA…no dice. So I finally was able to ask someone who works there, in Spanish, where TACA was, he kindly directed my upstairs. Which truth be told didn’t quite seem right to me because NO ONE else had suitcases upstairs and all of the signs were for departing, not for checking in. As I wove round the second floor of the airport I finally came to a sign that said “All Departures” so I figured the checking must be through the line. When I was entering that area a man that was working it told me I had to check in my luggage down stairs, so I asked again where TACA was because I really had looked everywhere by this point and had no luck finding it, he said downstairs. When I asked “where downstairs” he said, “Yes, down stairs. ” Perfect. So there I went again wheeling my ridiculously heavy bag all through Lima airport, getting redder and redder by the minute because it was so hot. When I got back downstairs I decided to give up and wait. So I sat down and waited for 2 hours. I made sure to sit right in front of their information boards that tell you what the progress on each flight is and which checking stands to go to. Cusco, however, was not on it. With only an hour to an hour and a half before my flight actually left I was confused as to why there was no record of the flight on the information board, As it turned out however if I wanted to know where TACA was checking in I would have had to walk down to the other end and check a different board and then walk back again, And I had been sitting in front of where TACA would eventually check people in, but since it was such a small flight apparently they only leave a short amount of time for everything. So for the whole time I had been looking for something that wasn’t even going to be opened for another 2.5 hours. What a dink! Anyway after all that when I finally checked in I went upstairs and had a large glass of mango juice, which wasn’t as much juice as it was pure, thick, liquidated mango, it was superb! Within about 2 hours after that I was in Cusco!!! When we were almost there, flying low enough to see everything below, but still above the mountains it was absolutely breathtaking. Everything was such deep colours, so vibrant. There were some lower clouds that just hugged the tops of the mountains, and there were lovely trees and rivers everywhere! That sight alone was worth all the strife in Lima. Finally when we were touching down you could see the streets, houses and cars, there were no skyscrapers in sight, no tall buildings at all really. Only similar looking short buildings covering each side of the valley. It looked like a perfect oasis.