Large Plates of Peru, part 1 - Miracles

 

    So I don't want to have the only recording of our trip to Peru to be on instagram, or the small plates where you really don't get the full picture. And I don't want to wait too long to record here and forget lots of the details, so I think I will start writing now, and come back and add pictures later. Hopefully...

    We are ACTUALLY here in Peru! It's wild! It's unbelievable! It's overwhelming and different and amazing and crazy and cool.  Jethro got home from his mission on September 27, which was exactly one week before we all flew out to Peru. We picked him up at the airport and it was so so so exciting to watch him walk out!!  I told everyone it felt like those were the fastest two years ever, and I really mean it. It did fly by so fast.

    So that next week we fit in a few things- Jethro, Hazel, Ethne, and I went to The Lion King in SLC, and a couple people had dentist appointments, and on Sunday the 2nd, we had a family early Thanksgiving dinner at my house. Everyone asked me then (and before then) if I felt stressed out about leaving, and I really didn't at that point. But on Monday I sure did!! I had to go run some errands in town, and my one guide for the excursions in Cusco had not been very organized and so I had to pay the last payment to him on that last day, and he hadn't given me a total until then. Arrrggh! So then I was trying to get all my money together and had to try three different banks before one could give me the money from my plasma card, etc etc.  But, one thing that was awesome was that all the packages I was really really hoping would get there in time, did get there! Hooray!! (Like my arch support orthotics because I'm becoming a old decrepit woman.) Miracle!!

    Brett had his own projects he was trying to finish last-minute, of course-- he was painting the big doors on the shop and weatherstripping them, so Jethro and some of the boys helped him a little with that. And on Saturday I think, he was trying to get the paint sprayer to work, and it wasn't, and he pointed it towards himself to look at the nozzle, and then it sprayed and went right in his eye and it was pretty horribly painful. According to Jethro and Orrin who were there, it was terrible and he was writhing on the ground for a minute and Jethro asked if he should call an ambulance. But luckily it got better pretty quickly. Miracle!

    So, finally everything was packed up (except for the dried plums I had picked because someone in Mendon had offered all her full trees of plums for free, and I had a food dehydrator I had borrowed from someone already at my house, so I thought  hey-free snacks, and spent all the time drying them, and then I hid the bags from the kids because they were eating them all, but then I never could find where it was that I had put them!) and we were ready to go. We had to get up crazy early to be at the airport by 5:30. Luckily my wonderful dad was willing to drive us in our van and be at our house at 4 in the morning. Later in a text to me he said it was "more exciting than words can tell." haha  And then we were at the airport and going through security and all that fun stuff. And then just waiting. So, Brett, me, and Hazel on down flew with United Airlines, while Jethro flew by himself on Delta because Brett had opened a credit card just for the points so that we basically got one free ticket. So Jethro left later than us. He had a really super long layover, like 8 hours or something, in LA. We would go from SLC to Denver to Houston to Lima, and get there really late at night, maybe midnight or something like that. And then he would not get to Lima until 5:30 or so the next morning. We decided rather than try to find a taxi to take us to an airport, and then shortly turn around and come right back to get him, we would just sleep on the floor in the airport for those few hours. And then we would all leave together on the bus to Huaraz at 10:30.   (eta: this picture of Hazel and Wyatt reading reminded me that at one point in our Cusco apartment I counted all the books I could find and there were 62 books, not including coloring books. I had bought 3 at the market, and there were possibly more somewhere that I didn't see.  That means we brought a lot of books.)

    What actually ended up happening is that on our first leg, to Denver, our plane came in and started to descend, and then super abruptly pulled up and circled around and around Denver. They had said that the visibility was poor, but like I said, it seemed like they were ready to land, and then got word not to. Anyway, we circled around a while, and then ended up going to Casper to refuel. Everyone was like, what the heck. So, we didn't deboard at Casper, they just refueled and then after a minute said they were going back to Denver. (I got on whatsapp and told my family that I was in Casper, and Ana was like, "You're only about an hour away from me!" and I said, "Great--we'll stay with you for 2.5 months!" and she said, "Welcome to the prairie!") Well, by the time all that had happened and we were back to Denver, our plane to Houston had long since left and we had missed it and thereby, all the following connections. Brett went and stood in line at the Service Desk while I stayed with the kids for a while, and when he came and talked to me, he said they told him that they couldn't get us all to Lima together in one group, but if they broke us up into two groups they could get some of us there Thursday and some Friday or something like that. If we wanted to go all together, it wouldn't be until Saturday. Ummm... that was 3-4 days away. And they weren't going to pay for a hotel, and obviously it was just a huge problem that would mess absolutely everything up. So we were just trying to wrack our brains as to what the heck we were going to do. (The person at the Service Desk was like, well at least your trip is for a long time so being late won't be so devastating as if it were a short trip, which is kind of true, but also kind of not- because the part of the trip that we were supposed to be in Huaraz and do our trek that was already paid for and non-cancelable was the part that we'd be missing.) We were starting to text Blake to see if he had any friends in Denver who might be willing to let us stay for a night or so, and Kami with the same question for Houston. But we decided to go back and talk to someone else at the Service Desk. Brett was like, they've got to be able to do something different. So we went together and told our tale of woe to a different guy, and at first, he said the same thing about if we split into even 3 groups the soonest we would all be there would be Friday or Saturday, and he couldn't do any other routes except through Houston, etc. But as we continued talking with him he said, let me go check with my supervisor to see if I can try something else with our partners. And when he came back he started sudokuing us a new route. So he found he could send us to Houston later that same afternoon, we'd stay there that night, and then go through Copa airlines to Panama City the next day and from Panama to Lima. And we'd all be together, and we'd only be a day late. MIRACLE!!!!  I was soo sooo grateful. I honestly wanted to hug the guy. He also gave all of us 15 dollars in food vouchers for the airport which was really great. 

    So we flew to Houston and got some burgers and fries and then took a shuttle to a hotel. In the shuttle bus I got in the back and was noticing that three ladies in front were speaking German as the kids were getting in. When Brett got in he heard the German so of course greeted them, and then I heard one say to the other something like, "Of course they speak German!" and then they got really quiet, and I am almost positive they were talking about us as we were getting in. haha

    The next day Talmage was going to run to a Walmart or Aldi that wasn't too far from the hotel to get us some food for the day, but he got too concerned that he wouldn't make it in time so he came back without the food. When we went back to the airport we used the last of our food vouchers to buy some subs, and then waited around until we flew to Panama City. It's kind of cool that we were in Panama but also we only saw the airport for a short little while, and my only impression is that it was too dark and kind of run-down.  But then we got on our plane to finally go to Lima!

My three kids look so very grown-up here! Going through an international airport gate all by themselves! (I mean, not really all by themselves, but you know what I mean.)

    So, since we were now getting to Peru a day late, Jethro was there without us. LUCKILY, he had some "friends" in Lima. So on his mission in Washington, he had taught a really awesome Peruvian family who had all gotten baptized. Their names were Roxana and Angel, and they had three little boys. Well after getting baptized, Roxana told her mom, Maria, who still lives in Lima to listen to the missionaries, and she did and she also got baptized. So Jethro had of course told Roxana that he was going to go to Peru, and she said that he had to go visit her mom! So we were planning on visiting them, but not until the very end (last day) of our trip. But when we told Jethro we were going to be a day late, he called Maria and she was sooooo generous and kind and said that of course he could stay with them and they picked him up from the airport (they meaning Maria, and also Maria's son Carlos and his wife Teresa), took him to their home and fed him and were super kind. Miracle!!!!!

    We finally finished our last leg of the flights and arrived in Lima!! It was really late, something like 1:00 am. So, we decided to just sleep on the floor, as per our original plan. Which was fine actually. We had brought 3 sleeping bags and Brett even brought his camping air mat, so he laid down on that and put in his ear plugs and slept pretty well for the next 5 hours. The kids all went to sleep, and I volunteered to take the first "watch." Because I was deep in my book so it wasn't that bad. :) I was up until about 4:30 when Hazel woke up because she was uncomfortable, and she said she couldn't fall back asleep, so I said, "well, will you be the watch then, for a while?" and she said yes, and I went to sleep on the bench. But then about 5:00 or so, Orrin woke up and had to go to the bathroom, so she said she would go with him (we had had talks about always being with a buddy-- in fact, we had assigned buddies and they have been so cute, walking down the streets of Peru sometimes holding hands. Awww) so she came and woke me up to tell me where they were going, and I said, "okay, I'll stay awake while you're gone" but I DIDN'T. And then I woke up at about 6:00 with a bad feeling, because it was noticeably lighter, but I didn't see Hazel or Orrin back. I watched the hallway from the direction they would be coming from for several minutes. About that time, Brett woke up and came over and I told him that they should be back by now, and I was worried. He said he would go walk to the bathroom and check, but he came back and said they weren't there. I was feeling really terrible by this time, because I just couldn't think of a reason they would be gone this long. Brett said they must have just gone for a walk, and he suggested we find someone to announce over the loudspeaker for them to go back to their party. But that didn't sound right to me. I thought maybe if they had gotten turned around and maybe kind of lost? Anyway, I said I would go check the girls bathroom, and went to grab my bag with all the important documents and stuff in it, and my phone was in it, so I picked up my phone and then I saw that I had a million missed calls from Hazel on whatsapp, and she had messaged me and said, "Mom, they told us we would have to go around, so we went downstairs and the only way to get back is through security." And I was SOOOO relieved, even though she was stuck downstairs, at least I knew there was a reason she had been gone an hour and she wasn't just stolen.  So sooooo relieved. HUGE MIRACLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!  It was weird, so the bathroom was really close to where we were, just around one corner, but there were like, barriers on two sides of the hall, that you had to walk through. But the middle was open, and we had all walked through them to go to the bathroom when we first got there, and a million other people walked through them and back again. But for some reason, when Hazel and Orrin went to the bathroom, they wouldn't let her back through. I have no idea why. Anyway, so she was stuck downstairs from us and couldn't get back up unless she went through security. 

    Well, I tried to go up to the security guy who was at that spot, but he didn't speak English, and so he had me talk to a lady, and she didn't really speak English very well, but she was trying to understand what I needed, but I didn't even really know what I needed, I just needed to find my kids and be able to come back up, but luckily while I was trying to communicate with her, Hazel and Orrin had decided to try to come back up and go through again, and so they saw me, and we all walked back to our spot. Sheeesh!!! So stressful!  Hazel was pretty upset. And no wonder! She had been sitting downstairs with Orrin for an hour, not knowing what to do. And I don't know why I didn't think to pick up my phone and check right off the bat, but anyway, all's well that ends well. 

   So then we decided to make our way to the Cruz del Sur bus station. We had missed our original bus ride the day before, and had to buy all new tickets for everyone. Blah. But anyway, we found a taxi (two actually, because they were just normal-sized cars) to take us to the bus station, and while Brett thought that he had agreed on the price, they told us something else when we got there, and it was terrible knowing that they were ripping us off, but we coudn't communicate well enough to not? Like, we said, no--we know that that's too much. But he wouldn't stop harassing us and saying how much it should be, blah blah blah, and I said to Brett that we should just walk away, but he hates that because he says that it makes him feel like a crook, but he also hates feeling like he's been taken for a fool. Not fun. In the end we paid them more than we knew was right but whatever. Then we went in and everything was crazy and we didn't know what way was up and I went to the Cruz del Sur counter, and the lady was great to use google translate on her computer screen and show me, so I knew what she was telling me to do. I checked in our luggage, and we were supposed to be down at the terminal at 10:00, so we had some time. Luckily, Brett had found an ATM at the airport, so we had some Peruvian soles, so I said I would try to go find some food since the bus ride would be 7 hours or so, and so he stayed with the kids, and I went out and someone directed me to a market around the corner, but markets are nothing like grocery stores and I was nervous and so I just bought some rolls and some water and a bag of grandola because I didn't want to venture any farther in. 

    Then we started getting really nervous that maybe Jethro wouldn't get there in time, because I had told him to come at 10:00, but I didn't know at the time that we were supposed to be AT the terminal at 10:00. I went back to the counter and started to ask the lady, and she was really nice and handed me her phone so I could type into google translate (blessed technology!), and she said, "The bus leaves at 10:30. If you're there at 10:30 you can get on, but it won't wait past that time." So I felt a little better. So we all went out and sat on a bench to wait and see if we could spy Jethro coming in, and I really was feeling quite worried that he wasn't going to get there on time, because it was getting close, and Brett and I even decided that if that happened, I would wait for him and we would go on the next bus (I think it would be the night bus that night) and he would take the rest of the kids. Anyway, I said that I would go in and take another lap around the station, and I did, and I saw his red hair and I ran to him and was so relieved! Miracle! Maria, Carlos, and Teresa were with him (they had driven him there, sweet people!) and they were very kind and happy to meet us, and waved to us all the time until we walked down the stairs to the terminal out of sight. 

    So we rode on the bus for the next 7 or 8 hours and it was horrible (see #4 of Wyatt's paper below) and the roads were soooo windy and I was so tired and I didn't have a window seat and was sitting next a random guy, so I only got a glimpse or two out the window, but honestly it was so ugly. Lima is the most ugly city I've ever seen, and even after driving for a long ways away, it still looks like a horrible mess. No trees or vegetation of any kind. No color. It reminded me of Morocco. (I'm sure there are other parts of it that are much better. I only got a few glimpses of one piece of it.)  Anyway, I dozed off, probably quite a lot, but even so, at the end I felt sick to my stomach and gross. When we got to Huaraz it was dark, even though it was only 6:00 and I felt so disoriented. Luckily, our tour guide, Hisaou, was there to drive us to our hotel. Brett said to me, "Oh man, it feels so good to have someone who will take care of us," and I felt EXACTLY that way, only probably more so. We went to our hotel, and they didn't have rooms for us (I had tried to communicate with them on whatsapp and tell them that we were going to be there but just a day late, but I don't think we understood each other), and while we were standing there, Navy threw up a bit. Orrin also felt really sick. Part of the problem was the windiness of the roads, but also we were going on such little sleep, and finally we were probably dehydrated and I feel bad that I didn't have Orrin and the other kids drink and eat more (although Orrin was offered the rolls I bought, but he didn't like them, so he didn't have any). Anyway, luckily, the hotel has another hotel that had rooms for us, so we went there and finally got into bed, and I feel like I could have cried for happiness for having a bed to sleep on.