and we're back!

Ahoy,

We almost didn't make it! Our flight out of Lima to Ft. Lauderdale was delayed. The plane was coming from Philadelphia where it experienced weather issues that delayed it 2 hours by the time it got to us in Lima. Our connecting flight was at 8:30am and we were to land at 8am, so they rescheduled our connection for 7pm, which would have us land around 10pm! Because that was the next flight from Ft. Lauderdale to LAX. So the plane: Philly --> Ft. Laud. --> Lima --> Ft. Laud.
We hop on: Lima --> Ft. Laud -->  (transfer) LAX. Our initial arrival time would have been 11am, leaving us the whole day to do things and nap. The prospect of losing our whole day at the airport in Ft. Lauderdale was incredibly upsetting.

We flew from Cusco to Lima, landing at 6:30pm. I was on the verge of tears at the counter in Lima. In retrospect, it all worked out, but at the time - I was so displeased. Our flight out of Lima was supposed to be at midnight, and we ended up leaving around 2am. We decided to stay at the airport for our 5 hour layover, which we probably would have been fine to leave the airport after all because our layover ended up being extended. The airport has this weird system of rotating airline counters. When we first landed, there was no JetBlue counter, which initially put me into a tizzy. They actually opened around 9pm to reveal a delayed flight. What a day!

We tried to sleep at the airport. I pushed some benches together, making light of the fact that our new home was the airport. We ended up landing close to 7:30am, and I elbowed our way ahead of the crowd to get to customs and immigration first. Luckily, we had just gotten Global Entry so that pulled us ahead, and TSA pre, which helped us out entering back through security into domestic flights. Plus, we had no checked bags to collect. It probably took us all of 15 minutes to disembark, go through customs & immigration, and go back through security to get to our original flight. We caught the flight before they even started boarding, and made it back to LA by 11am. And they thought we wouldn't make it. What a day!

I was more than happy to return to a gloomy LA. I was over the sunny days in Cusco that left me burnt and toasty like a roasted tomato. We ended up with really only 1 rainy day over the whole trip, despite the forecast for all rainy days. Even A got burnt, and he usually does not. That high altitude sun got us good. We went to whole foods and reveled in the high sanitary standards of the USA. We had the top down on his car and reveled in the non-black smoke puffing out of all the automobiles. It was so good to be home. It even started raining, and it did not stop until the next day. What I wouldn't give for more rainy days!

sinfully elated,
jt