The First 34 Hours

11:00pm (11/26/08) - I finally finish packing and you can see from my pictures that i crammed all that stuff into my backpack. I have 2 backpacks, the main one goes on the back (26.5 lbs) and the smaller AT&T one is used as a day pack (~10lbs). I was expecting to stay up all night since Shiz and Tien Shiao were coming to pick me up at 2:15am. I wanted to play Guitar Hero or something but finally I was too tired, a few hours was better than none.

2:15am (11/27/08) - Ahhh!!! I woke up late, I was supposed to wake up at 1:30 to double check everything was packed...now I'm rushing because I was woken up by Tien Shiao's call. Rushing rushing I grabbed all my stuff said bye to mom and my vacation was starting.

2:45am (11/27/08) - We were flying out of SFO (San Fran) so we were taking the 580, but all of a sudden there was a huge back up. Everyone was like WTF, its 2 am on Turkey Day and there is traffic? What is this, not LA...(sorry babe, haha LA traffic is bad). So we call 511 (free traffic service for the Bay) and come to find that a semi-truck had overturned and was blocking all the lanes except the left one...imagine 5 highway lanes converging down to 1, plus all the rubber neckers out there (including us, picture of it are on Shiz's camera, will upload later)

4:00am (11/27/08) - We make it through the accident and to SFO. Tien Shiao is awesome for dropping us off, since he himself has to drive down to the OC by 6pm for dinner with his family (I hope he made it). After we take our first official picture on vacation, both Shiz and I with all our gear on, we checked in for our 6am flight into Miami. Having our big backpacks sent directly to Lima was great, that way we didn't need to mess with it in Miami. I had a toasted bagel w/ cream chees, banana, and OJ for breakfast. Shiz had fruit salad, OJ and water. Then we just waited...btw the airport was really empty.

6:00am (11/27/08) - We are aboard the plane and luckily when we checked in we asked for the emergency aisle (for the sake of my legs). You can see a picture I took of how much room I have for my legs. The flight was overall good, it was about 5 1/2 hours, I slept a bit, watched WALL-E on the tv and drank juice. I also took pictures as we flew across our great country. Can't tell you what state they are but I thought they were nice views.

2:30pm (11/27/08) - We arrive at Miami, 3 hour time difference, and this was my first time there, hot and humid. It was probably about 80 degrees and 50% humidity...for November, no thanks. It was a huge airport (like LAX) but we had 3 hours before our next flight. We had to take the long trek from Domestic terminals to International and then had lunch at a Bar & Grill in the terminal. Again we got lucky and was able to get the emergency aisle.

5:00pm (11/27/08) - We are now on the flight from Miami to Lima, Peru. Estimate flight time 5 hours 20 minutes. This airplane (LAN airlines) had the best amenities of any aircraft I have ever been on. Not only were we in leg room heaven, we had our own individual tv monitors, cozy blankets, a remote for channel surfing and game playing, but the best was that each set of seats had a POWER PLUG for computers, Ipods, etc. I have never seen anything like it. I was greatly impressed, even though we didn't use the power plug, it was a nice feature to have. Again this flight was long and it mainly consisted of sleeping and watching movies. I did watch Casandra's Dream, it was a drama and something I couldn't appreciate while flying, oh well... We did get served food. I ordered the beef with rice...not so good, beef super salty, and rice was hard. Shiz had the chicken and potatoes, looked better, I didn't try.

11:25pm (11/27/08) - We are finally in Lima, Peru. I believe Lima is the world record holder for smallest international airport in a capital city. This airport is so small, we had to get off the plane and get shuttled to it. Then inside, I could see from one end to the other...no more than 3 city blocks. Well our next flight isn't until 4:55am the next morning, so we were in no rush. But going through customs and immigration was a blast. Every and their mothers (literally) were stampeding off the shuttle in hopes of getting a good place in the line. Shiz and I went with the flow, but man it was funny. People were yelling at each other for cutting, and it was then that I finally felt the language barrier come down.

1:00am (11/28/08) - We get through customs ok, and now its time to kill some time...(that made sense right?) not much to do in the world's smallest airport, exchanged some money, bought some snacks and found some uncomfortable seats to try to sleep in. Shiz was out like a light bulb, she locked her bag and was clutching it with her life. You can see a picture of Shiz sleeping, while I was the watchout.

4:20am (11/28/08) - Somehow, it came to be 4:20am, time to board out last plane for this trek. We are flying from Lima to Juliaca (Puno), next to Lake Titicaca.

6:30am (11/28/08) - Shiz and I were both so tired, we were out for the whole flight. We were awaken by people removing their things from the overhead compartment and leaving. We got our stuff and got off the plane too. After a few pictures, we checked out watch and saw that we were an hour early in getting into Juliaca...WRONG!!! There was a stop before ours and we got off at the wrong place. We were running back to the plane to continue on to Juliaca. That would not have been fun if we missed it...man (dodged a bullet there)

7:30am (11/28/08) - We arrive at our final destination for this leg of our trip. Right away we could both feel the change in elavation. It is 3285 meters (12,550 ft) above sea level. This is the highest place we will travel to during our trip. I could feel short of breath, but with forced heavier breathing I was ok. Shiz on the other hand wasn't feeling so hot. She just didn't feel right, we took it slow. The "hotel" was supposed to send someone to pick us up...didn't happen until 8:30am!!! an hour later, we were just sitting there...but I did take some pictures of the scenory, beautiful and the weather was great, about 65 degrees and not a cloud in the sky.

9:00am (11/28/08) - We finally arrive at the "hotel colon inn" and check in. We are both beat, Shiz is suffering from altitude sickness and they say that cocao tea helps but also this pill called Sorajchi pills. I got her some while she got ready to nap. I hope it works for her. After a nap for a few hours we'll take in the city and the local cuisine. Can't wait. I'm going to get some shut eye too. Until next post...

Also check out all the pictures I referenced click here.