October 18, 2024
On the morning of September 13th, we headed to the airport in Cusco to exchange our stay in the Andes for a stay in the Amazon. Doing this ended up being a lot harder than expected. We got to Cusco and got our bags checked without any issues. We headed up through security and then to the gate area to chill until our flight. The airport at Cusco is small; just four gates. It was fairly empty and we were able to grab some seats. At one point after looking up at the board we noticed that our flight had been delayed. This wasn’t good. We only had a 65 minute layover in Lima before our flight to Iquitos and our flight had been delayed by an hour. And then it got pushed back a bit more. It got pushed back enough that we found out that the airline had to provide us with a snack. This snack ended up being a delicious ham and cheese croissant and a pop. Finally they tell us we’re boarding, but I already know that it’s going to be too late for our connecting flight.
When we get to Lima, of course our flight doesn’t get to just land at the terminal. We end up pulling into a parking spot on the tarmac to unload, meaning we have to get on a bus to take us back to the terminal. When the bus gets to the terminal, it lets us off…straight into baggage claim. What?!? We have troubles trying to figure out where to go, and find out that the only way is out through baggage claim, and then we have to go back through security to get to the gates. What a mess! We get up to security and then after explaining our flight was delayed and we need to see if our flight is still at the gate even though it is at least a half hour after our scheduled departure, they let us through. Our flight has of course left, so we go to the gate where the next flight to Iquitos is departing from and they tell us it is full and that we need to go back to the front desk to get a new flight.
So next we have to figure out how in the world to get out of the gate area. We can’t find any way out because there isn’t just an exit like in American airports. Someone finally points us to some small door in the wall that is guarded by a security guard. They let 6 people through at a time. While we’re waiting, I start typing on my phone in Google Translate, that we missed our connecting flight and need to go down to the front desk to rebook our flight. I figured it was easier this way because whomever was on the other side of the door could just looked at the Spanish translation instead of us trying to explain in my poor Spanish what happened. We finally get through the door and find that there are customs agents on the other side. None of them seemed to want to look at my phone, and I finally shove it in their face to look at. They scan our passports and almost reluctantly let us go downstairs.
Once downstairs we explain we missed our flight due to our first one being late and they direct us to a line for rebooking connecting flights (apparently this is a big enough issue?). My heart is racing by this point because it's all falling apart. Everything had gone so perfectly up to this point! My watch told me twice that I was stressed and needed to relax. Finally we are booked on a flight set to leave at like 4:30. Perfect. We should still be able to make it to Iquitos before 7. It is all good.
The last thing we have to do for now is go down to Desk 62 and pick up our suitcases to get them re-checked for our new flight. We head down there and explain what happened and they tell us we’ll need to wait an hour before they are able to get our bags to us to re-check. We are hungry by this point so head up to the food court to get food. The majority of the food at the airport is outside security so we were able to get to it without issue. Later we head back down to get our bags and they check them onto our new flight to Iquitos.
Now that the bags are taken care of we can head through security again. As we’re heading upstairs people are excited talking and it seems someone famous has entered the scene. Or maybe the correct answer is many someones. We end up following the Universitario futbol team through security and people are fangirling and fanboying everywhere. We have no idea who they are at this point. My only guess is they are a soccer team, and we can see their uniforms have a U in a circle on them. We end up googling them later to get an answer. They finished at the top of the top league in Peru last year and have a stadium that holds 80,000 people. No wonder everyone was so excited. I suppose it would be like seeing the Chiefs walking into the airport.
When we first get through security and look at the board, our flight has a gate listed and we walk down there, but it is too crowded and still like 2 hrs from departure so we go to find somewhere less busy. A little while later we check the board again, and our flight has changed gates. We go to the new gate. Then it gets changed again…and then again. We’re finally at our fourth gate and our flight is delayed. Eventually the plane pulls up and people get off, but nothing seems to be happening. Eventually they pull out the snacks again. Still nothing is happening. Then around 6:30 people start crowding the desk at the gate and are getting rowdier and rowdier. An announcement is made in Spanish and people go crazy. They never make an announcement in English, but I say to Mom, “I think they just canceled our flight.” I type into Google Translate “Flight Canceled? Downstairs to rebook?” and flash it to one of the poor workers near the desk who nods and Mom and I take off downstairs as fast as we can. We figure the sooner we can get down there, the sooner we can get rebooked and for sure get on a flight the next day. Because we have to get to Iquitos the next day. We had one extra day booked into our trip just in case of issues getting between Cusco and Iquitos.
We race downstairs, passing a number of people on the way and end up about 15 people from the front of the line. Once again my heart is racing. My watch buzzes at me twice again saying “Abnormal Heartrate”...probably due to hitting 120 when it knew I wasn’t exercising. I was just sort of freaking out. Mom kept telling me it’ll be okay and that they’ll make sure we get on a flight, so no point in getting too worked up. It takes about an hour, but we finally get up to the desk and they book us on a flight for the following afternoon. It turns out that rebooked the whole flight onto a brand new flight because the last time our flight number had been used was in 2020 (I looked it up on FlightAware).
As part of the rebooking, they book us at the Sheraton in Historic Lima. The cost of this single night at the Sheraton was roughly equal to what we paid for our 3 nights in Cusco and 3 nights in Ollantaytambo. Luckily for us, LATAM was footing the bill for our night there, our food, and the taxi there and back. The trip there took us around an hour! By the time we got checked in it was after 10. The one problem we had with losing our extra day was we were going to do laundry on that day off. Since we were going to be spending the day traveling, this wasn’t going to be an option, and laundry services had already closed at the Sheraton for the night. This meant Mom and I ended up washing underwear, a few pairs of socks, some pants, and a few shirts in the sink, and then hanging them up to dry. Boy were some of those clothes dirty!
The next morning we went down to breakfast where we were able to enjoy a breakfast buffet and some mimosas (all for free). Then because we weren’t being picked up until noon, we went for a walk around the area. The hotel was just off the Parque de la Exposicion so we headed for a walk in the park. We quickly found that much of the park was closed off because of a festival that was happening. As we walked, we discussed our plans for our last day in Peru, when we were supposed to be back in Lima. The initial plan had been to stay at a hotel near where we currently were at. We both decided that after dealing with the hour-long taxi ride from the airport down there, and since we were unexpectedly getting the chance to see the area, we didn’t feel the need to come back. We decided we would rebook to a hotel closer to the airport.
When we got back to the hotel we got our bags and headed to the front of the hotel to wait for our taxi back to the airport. We waited and waited and were about to just get a taxi ourselves when finally our driver shows up. We get back to the airport, check in, go through security, and go to our gate. And thankfully the airplane is there and it is showing “Confirmed” on the board, which was something it never showed the day before. We see passengers we recognize from the night before too. To our relief, we get on the plane and fly to Iquitos. The plane is only about half full. I assume some people decided to cancel their trip.
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| We're on a plane! And it's flying to Iquitos! Finally! |
The first thing you notice when arriving at Iquitos is the humidity. Goodness gracious was it humid! And hot! But the humidity was worse! We successfully haggled with and got a mototaxi ride to our hotel. Mototaxis are essentially motorized rickshaws. Like a mullet motorcycle: motorcycle in the front, family vehicle in the back. We quickly found that in Iquitos, like 95% of the vehicles on the road are these sort of vehicles. We also later found out that they make them Iquitos and there are supposedly over 80,000 of them in the city.
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| Riding in the Mototaxi |
We made our way to our hotel which was on a sort of inlet off the Amazon River. I booked this place specifically because you could see the water, which made you feel like you were really there. We were so grateful for the little a/c in the room which made it a reasonable temperature inside because outside was still like 95 degrees.
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| View from our hotel in Iquitos |
We went for a quick walk to find food and ended up buying a bag of 25 rolls for 5 soles ($1.25), and ended up eating rolls and peanut butter for supper.
The next morning we showered and walked a kilometer up the road to the Double Tree Inn where we would be meeting our tour guide operators and setting off on our Peruvian Amazon Cruise.
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