The Final days of Peru

Our final day in Cusco involved having to find a new hotel for the last night. We really liked and felt comfortable at the hotel we stayed in up until now. Loved the great breakfasts and the staff were just so friendly and nice. They honestly made you feel welcome. I had actually inadvertently left my dive watch behind in the room before the trail start and they found it and kept it for me (although I did have to ask for it). But I could have just have easily not gotten it ya know. We moved to another hotel that I guess was more aesthetically pleasing but the staff sure did not compare, but it was only one night. The rest of the day was spent walking around town to buy souvenirs and gifts and eat in a nice restaurant. We seemed to end up in this Irish bar a lot. That night plans were made to meet up with our group for some final drinks and a good bye at a very eclectic bar restaurant. Elsa was in her element; it was so FRISCO

and brought her back to her days of romping around hillcrest. She is now an east county evangelical ;) Our flight the next day was an early one at 6am so we left early (10pm) to pack and get some sleep. We said our goodbyes and set off to the hotel for essentially our last night in Peru.
Morning came early at 4:30 and the guy who had picked us up at the airport arrived as promised to take us back. He had been paid handsomely for his services and I guess he was expecting more, but we were now the wiser to what things actually cost and I suppose he knew it.
We arrived in Lima at 8 am and our flight was not supposed to take off to Houston until 11pm that night!!! Not so bad I guess because it meant we could spend the day in Lima.
Now the Lima part will be a short one because there really wasn’t much to see. Just a big bustling city that had this thick muggy marine layer covering it like a shroud, and apparently it’s like that most of the year. Relatively unimpressive and I certainly would encourage anybody visiting Peru to have it be nothing more than a transit point to somewhere better. Really you are not missing anything. I did get to see some surfers which I found interesting and the surf did look good but other than that Elsa and I just spent the day killing time, eating, sitting where ever we could for what ever reason we could come up with, we even got in a movie. Back at the airport later that evening we find out that the airport tax is 65 dollar's each to get out of the country, and its cash only. Imagine if you were traveling on a shoestring and had no idea of the fee and no money left? And they also don’t take a credit card!! The plane was delayed over an hour so the flight did not take off until 1am.I thought at that point the whole trip had really gone way too smoothly without something happening. In addition we would miss our connecting flight in Houston ... A pain and you can imagine we were tired and just wanted to get home... We did eventually arrive home a few hours later than planned, tired and glad to get back to that routine. It’s a mixed bag of feelings but I missed my daughter and el Fred, they were both happy to see me. But we both were fully aware that we had just completed something quite special and experienced something that will always remain in the top tier of our life experiences. I have been around the world and this was certainly one of the highlights...It some ways I am still on the trail...

The end