Alright!   Here we go!

My new adventure has begun!

Today I left for 3 1/2 weeks around Peru and Bolivia.

It’s been about 4 months since I came back from my Germany Trip and while I’ve enjoyed being back home, it’s nice to get back out there to explore a new part of the world.

Security Follies

After a quick cleanup and some last minute packing, my friend Cole came by to drive me to the airport this morning.

I used to work with him and hadn’t seen him in a few years so it was nice to catch up with him on the ride in.   The ride for seamless that before you knew it, we had arrived at YVR.

11:15am.

Just over 2 hours til my flight leaves.

Because I was only taking carryon luggage and I had done a checkin online, I headed straight for the security area.

This time around I had everything figured out with my toiletries and liquids.   I had packaged them all into 3 ziploc bags before I left so I’d be able to just simply plop the 3 bags into one of the trays to go through the xray machine.

Easily peasy!   Damn, I’m so smart!

Well…

Wouldn’t you know, they have a limit on the total volume of liquids you can bring with you on board the airplane.

The security guy handed me a little plastic baggie and told me that any liquids I wanted to take with me had to fit into that bag.

Yup, I now had to convert my three ziploc bags into this one tiny bag.

Sigh.

In the end I was able to put most of it into the baggie but I still had to throw out a couple of things.

I swear, one of these days I’ll have airport security figured out.

On a side note, neither of my bags got pushed down the belt to secondary as had happened on the last trip so that was a win.

Anyway, despite all that, I was in and out of both security and customs in just 20 minutes.

11:35am

Two hours til my flight…

A delay to start the day

This flight would be the first of a grueling 4 flights today.

Yes, you read that right.

My first flight at just over an hour would take me to Seattle where I’ll transfer to another short flight to LA before hopping on my long haul 8 1/2 hour flight to Lima where I’ll take my final flight, another short one, to my final destination of Cusco.

When I arrived at the airport I saw an email notification on my phone.   My first flight was delayed 30 minutes.   With only an 84 minute transfer at Seattle I was a little worried.

Then, a few minutes later, the delay was updated to 40 minutes.

Okay, now I was legit very worried.

If I missed this connection it would be a domino effect on the rest of the day.

I quickly looked up the layout for the Seattle Airport.   I knew which gate I’d be landing at and which one I’d be taking off from on my next flight so I just had to figure out logistically if I could do a quick transfer at the airport or not.

I was happy to find that the two gates were pretty close together despite being in different sections of the airport, there was a quick shuttle train that took you from each area.

Finally, at just after 2pm, we were on our way to Seattle.

As we were landing, the flight attendant made an announcement that there were about 15 of us who had tight transfers and asked everyone to stay seated while we made our way off the plane.

Nice touch Alaska Airlines.   Much appreciated!

A quick stop in Seattle

We touched down in Seattle an hour later at 3pm and taxied into our gate 10 minutes later.

My next flight, also an Alaskan Airlines flight, was leaving in 50 minutes with boarding starting in just 10 minutes.

No worries though as I was off the plane in no time and onto the shuttle train within a couple of minutes.   The short shuttle ride took just over 5 minutes and I was walking up to my departure gate just as boarding was beginning.

Piece of cake!

All that stressing for nothing!

Phew!

In all I was in Seattle for less than an hour.

On our way to Los Angeles…

LA to Peru

We landed in Los Angeles around 6:30pm giving me almost a full three hours until my next flight on to Lima.

I spend that time set up in a secluded area catching up on internet stuff and writing the first half of this blog.

Before I knew it, it was time to board flight #3.

This flight was an LATAM flight and you knew you were on the home stretch of the journey as everything was all of a sudden in both English and Spanish.

We left LA around 9:30pm.

Now came the real question – would I get any sleep on this flight?

Well, short answer, nah, not really.

I did shut my eyes and try to sleep but, as always, no sleep for this guy.

I don’t know, something about being on an airplane, I just can’t sleep.

I’ve tried all sorts of things but I’ve pretty much just given up trying to sleep and recognize that I’m just going to be up for 24 plus hours at the beginning of my trips.

Meh, whatever.   I’m on vacation!   Who needs sleep, anyway?

As for food on the flight – well, we had both dinner and breakfast served to us.

I was never given an opportunity to preorder a gluten free meal so I just kind of took what they gave me.

For dinner it was a choice of a pasta dish or beef with potato and vegetable.

That was an easy choice.   Naturally, I left the bun behind but had everything else.   Overall, a pretty decent albeit small meal of beef and potato with grilled tomatoes and onions.

Breakfast was sadly a big fat miss for me and my gluten allergy.

There was no choice and I was handed a tray with a foil covered dish.

There was that little bit of excitement unwrapping the foil kind of like opening a present on Christmas morning.

I had dreams of scrambled eggs with potatoes and vegetables but, sadly, it was just a ham and cheese bagel with a blueberry muffin and a fruit salad.

Now, gluten tolerant me 5 years ago would have been all over this breakfast but the celiac version of me was picking apart the bagel to get those two coveted pieces of ham outta there while mowing down on the fruit salad.

Oh well, tis is the life of a celiac.

Just gotta make do and adapt.

Anyway, we finally touched down in Lima eight hours later arriving almost a half hour early.

Time for a time zone change as Lima is 2 hours ahead of Vancouver time.

It was 7:30am and I had now been up for just over 20 hours.

One more flight to go…

Lima transfer

Thanks to the early landing, I now had just over 2 hours between flights which was great because, I won’t lie, I was a little worried about this transfer.

I had to go through customs and then leave the international terminal and go to the domestic one next door.

When I saw I only had a 90 minute transfer time, I searched Google to see if I could find any info about doing this transfer.

I actually came across a helpful YouTube video from a guy who literally did the walk through the airport and I took notes of what I saw.

Take a left at immigration, go to the right through these doors, go to exit 3 etc.

So, when I actually arrived at the Lima airport, I was more than ready.

Turns out it was super easy but I definitely would have gotten lost if I didn’t know what I was doing.   Figuring out where the domestic terminal was would have taken some work.

Anyway, I went through security and I got outta there in no time and was at my gate at the domestic terminal by 8:30 time, a full hour and a half early for my 10am flight to Cusco.

Hola Cusco!

The flight to Cusco was another short flight at just over an hour and I literally had my eyes closed the whole time just trying to somehow, someway, fall asleep.

At 11:30am we had landed.

Finally!

All four flights done!

In total, I was in transit for about 20 hours and I had now been up for just over 24 hours.

Bed for me, however, would still be a few hours ago because, I mean, I’m in a new city in a new country and it’s not even noon.

Way too early to go to bed!

What happened the rest of the day?

Well, you’re just going to have to read part two.