The primary reason for our latest adventure was to visit Machu Picchu in Peru.  Yet, if you are in the vicinity, why not go to see the Nazca Lines, the Peruvian Amazon and the Galapagos Islands?  We did all of that over three weeks from mid September to early October 2024.  Come along, won’t you?

This trip was under Avalon Waterways – a new travel company for us.  It was recommended by our stellar travel agent.  Even with all the details that she handled, it was still a very time consuming preparation for us.  We had to get help from travel medical personnel about high altitude and malaria medications – one of which I was allergic to.  We had to get the appropriate kind of insect repellent for the Amazon and carefully choose our luggage to meet the reduced requirements of some of the smaller airlines on internal flights.  We also were going to be away from our luggage for one night so had to figure out how to take one bag to handle taking enough for both of  us for one night.  We ordered a Peru electrical converter and figured out how to get Soles, the local currency.  It just felt like a lot – before we even left!

The first leg of our newest adventure had us leaving our house at 3:00 a.m. for a flight at 6:20 a.m. from PHX to LAX.  As we approached Los Angeles, phone alerts started going off all throughout the plane – but not ours.  Those people who didn’t put their phones on Airplane Mode were outed!

The alert was for an earthquake, later learned to be 4.7 magnitude centered in Malibu.

We had lounge access to wait out our four hour layover and, for once, it wasn’t crowded.

After all the prep, the early hour flight and an earthquake – I enjoyed my coffee and Baileys!

Our flight to Lima was 8 hours on Latam Airlines, the airline of Chile.  The table apparatus on one of our business class pods was broken so the gate agent was going to move one of us to a different pod, thereby giving the person receiving a complimentary upgrade the broken table. 

We opted to stay together, despite the broken table, and Randy took that seat.  He was being the gentleman, but also wondered if he could fix it!

Alas, no fix seemed possible.

Communication was interesting for us once on board because this is a South American airline and the primary communications were in Spanish and Portuguese.  English was a distant third.  Fortunately, our cabin attendants spoke enough English for us to get by.

With the very early start, I laid down flat and did sleep for an hour or so.  Randy did not, choosing to watch several movies.

The plane was very chilly so we had our provided blankets over us while we watched our screens.

We usually find that foreign airlines put more value on the passenger experience compared to US carriers.  I wouldn’t say that was true on Latam but it was adequate and our attendants were very helpful.

On arrival in Lima, passing through immigration and customs was very easy.  They recorded our entry electronically so our passports did not get a Peru stamp.  

We claimed our luggage right away and walked into an area to find our transportation from Avalon Waterways.  There was a crowd of drivers, all with passenger’s names but none had ours.  We had to wait a little while as our plane had arrived 30 minutes early. International flights generally come into Lima very early (for overnight flights) or quite late – 10:40 pm in our case.

We chatted with our pleasant driver on our 30 minute drive to the hotel.  Peru has about 32 million people and 11-12 million of them live in Lima.   One million of Peru’s population are refugees from Venezuela.

He said Lima is a gastronomic capital in the world!  Three of the top ten restaurants in the world, including #1 are in Lima.  The highest ranked, Central Restaurante, generally requires reservations a year out.

It was interesting that he knew about the recent presidential debate in the US and that the “senora did so much better than Trump.” We have found as we travel around the world, people know what happens in our country.   It wasn’t our plan to be out of the country during the 2024 campaign but, woohoo, side benefit!

We arrived about midnight at a nice hotel in Lima.  Unlike European hotels we’ve been in, the shower plumbing was just like what we are used to in the US.  Also, we did not need the Peru electricity adapter – yet.

Our trip began on September 12, 2024.

Next up:  We have a day in Lima on our own.