On Wednesday morning, May 4th, we had a cab waiting for us at 7 am at our hotel in La Paz. It took less than an hour for the last ride up out of the La Paz canyon and onto the flat plain of El Alto to the airport. After exchanging the last of our Bolivian money for US dollars, we checked in with Peruvian Airlines for our flight to Cusco. Security and customs were easy and we took off on time at 10:40 am. It's only an hour flight and there's an hour time difference so we landed at 10:40 in Cusco.
We had to collect our luggage and check in with Star Peru Airlines for our flight to Lima. The Cusco airport is very busy because many international tourists fly to Lima, then straight to Cusco, go on a tour to Machu Picchu, turn around and go back to Lima and leave the country. There's one big waiting area past security but not waiting areas at each individual gate. It's very difficult to hear any flight announcements. We were lucky not to miss our flight which boarded and left 15 minutes early.
Our flight to Lima was about an hour and a quarter so we were there a little after 2pm. At the Lima airport it's important not to get in the wrong taxi or bad things could happen. One of the official taxi services is Taxi Green so, for 60 soles ($24 CA) we arranged a ride to our hotel, the Inti Killa, in the Miraflores area of Lima.
After checking in to our hotel, we walked to the centre of Miraflores where there are lots of restaurants. Miraflores is much nicer than the historic centre of Lima. There are lots of nice apartment buildings and hotels, fairly wide sidewalks and a general feeling of prosperity. There are still beggars and heavy traffic but the area feels much safer. We ate at a traditional Peruvian restaurant listed in our guidebook before buying water and returning to our hotel for the night. Our room was small but clean and comfortable.
The included breakfast on Thursday morning was simple but filling. We couldn't extend our checkout time so we slowly packed up and finally checked out at 11 am. We left our bags at the hotel and walked a few blocks to the park which runs several kilometres along the top of the cliff above the seaside highway and stony beach. It was a beautiful warm, sunny day. We spent several hours walking through the park and met several gringo tourists killing time like us, either on their way to or from Machu Picchu. The only excitement was watching the paragliders who have a launch spot from one point. There wasn't a lot of wind so few of them could take off. One launched but couldn't get enough lift from the sea breeze coming up the cliff. He started drifting lower immediately and had to land on a little point about halfway down. He came very close to hitting the cliff side, which might have been disastrous.
Eventually we bought more water and wandered back to our hotel and then took a long walk past the centre of Miraflores to a recommended restaurant. There we each had a quarter chicken. The walk there and back killed more time. In the evening, we sat in our hotel lobby for awhile and read our books. Finally at 8:30, we had the desk clerk call a cab to the airport for us. This time it cost 40 soles ($16 CA) for the hour ride through heavy traffic to the airport.
The Lima airport was quite chaotic. We discovered that the Air Canada check-in wouldn't open until close to midnight so we found a seat and barricaded ourselves in with a luggage cart so no-one could run over our feet with their luggage cart. Eventually, close to midnight, the check-in opened. Although there were lots of tired, cranky tourists lined up, we got through that and then through customs and security without incident. At our gate, we even managed to sleep for a few minutes before our plane took off at 2:55 am.
On the plane we managed to sleep for a few hours and arrived in Toronto about noon. Again customs and security through to our next flight was easy. However, we then discovered that our 2:10 pm flight to Ottawa was now delayed until 3:40. We eventually managed to send an email to our son Dylan who was picking us up in Ottawa. Finally, at 4:45, we arrived in Ottawa and in a few minutes met Dylan and his partner Kasumi, picked up our bags and were on our way home.
After a stop for Vietnamese food at the Oxhead in Kanata and a few groceries in Renfrew, we were home by 10 pm. It was a long trip getting from Sucre, Bolivia on Tuesday morning to home on Friday night.
We loved our 2 months in Canoa and our month travelling through Peru and Bolivia. The altitude and the cold nights in the Andes were a bit of a struggle sometimes but we saw some fantastic places and had another great trip. At the end of a trip it's always good to be home.
A few final pictures from La Paz and one from Machu Picchu:
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