It has been an extremely long day and by the time it is over it will have lasted 48 hours. After spending Thursday night at Beth's house, we woke up at 5:30 Friday morning and went into work. Work lasted forever as our anticipation of departure grew by the hour. 3:30 finally arrived and we were off to get ready to go to the airport. The next 38 hours are a blur.
- 7:30PM departure from Syracuse to JFK
- 11:30PM departure from JFK to Lima, Peru.
- 6:30AM arrival in Lima, where our transfer (ride to the hotel) was not there to greet us...
This is where our story with "Ivan the Terrible" taxi driver begins. The agreed upon price to the hotel was $20 US. Now, please don't count your chickens before they hatch, because this price is apparently not carved in stone. Any number of factors could change the agreed amount without notice. Ours were, the language barrier and an apparent stroke that Ivan suffered years ago while living in NY City. Which brings us back to the language barrier. He live in NY for 20 PLUS years, so if I had to bet my last piece of clothing in a game of strip poker, I would bet that his English was just fine.
Ivan was nice enough to give us a tour of Miraflores, which is where the hotel was. This apparently was not etched in our minds as it should have been. You will soon find out why this was a problem. All the while, Ivan kept telling us how he had suffered a stroke a number of years ago and fist pumped the air with his "bad" hand. The fist pump looked more like someone attempting to milk an invisible cow, but at any rate, all digits worked fine. We pulled up to the Hotel Britania and Ivan requested his $25 US. Oh wait, you say "I thought the agreed price was $20 US?" Well, somewhere between the stroke, the fist pumping and the city tour inflation occurred. We payed Ivan and were glad to have ARRIVED. It was 8:00AM.
The two ladies working the front desk played Good Cop, Bad Cop which apparently translates into Nasty and Nastier. We were told we could not check into our room yet so I asked to use the phone to call the GAP guide and was told it would cost me 1 Soles per minute and I agreed. The guide, Angel, assured me he spoke with the manager and we would be allowed to check in sooner... sooner being as soon as someone else checked out. I hung up after that 45 second phone call was charged 2 soles for the call... you know, inflation. The ladies suggested we take a city tour while we waited, but because we were so tired and in need of a shower we decided to park our butts in the lobby and wait.
We both settled into our books. A few people wandered in and out, including a well dressed man in dress trousers and a wool coat. Looking back on it, he looked like the Peruvian version of Mr. Bean. He passed through the lobby and a few minutes later Beth said something was going on . The hotel doorman and another employee were making Mr. Bean empty his pockets. Pretty quickly it became apparent that Mr. Beam was nothing more than a well dressed thief. He had lifted a ladies pocketbook while downstairs in the restaurant. Hotel staff suspected him before he had a chance to leave the hotel. Mr. Bean was made to stand 5 feet from us while the police were being summoned.
Realizing the magnitude of the situation and an unrealistic belief that he had an opportunity to flee the scene, Mr. Bean made a break for the door. The doorman, who was built like a linebacker, clothes lined Mr. Bean, threw him to the floor and held him down to the floor with a giant hand to the forehead. The scuffle sent the coffee table and a bench sliding across the floor towards Beth and I. I watched in amazement as the whole scene unfolded before us while Beth spent equal amounts of time still reading and shooting dirty looks at Mr. Bean. I was amazed at Beth's ability to continue reading with chaos unfolding around her.
After a brief struggle on the floor, Mr. Bean took on the posture of a submissive dog, tucked his tail and sat down pointing out that his hand was mildly injured with several slow motion grimaces and a flick or two of the injured hand.
After several tense minutes, a few more looks of desperation and many more obvious hopes of escape the police arrived. Turns out, the pocketbook belonged to a lady that was in our travel group.
Next, we were called to the front desk and finally arrived in our room. As we entered, it was clear that Nasty and Nastier once again had a good laugh as they assigned us to a room that was in the process of being painted. All of the art was off the wall and laying on the desk and beds, the furniture was moved to the center of the room, windows wide open, paint chips on the floor and bed. I looked at the bellhop and I could hear the words leaving my mouth, "Esta limpia?". Totally bewildered he had to actually find the phone and plug it back in to call the front desk to ask what was going on. Thank God for the men of The Hotel Britania, otherwise the women would certainly scare everyone off.
Settling into our second room we showered and went back downstairs to eat. Nasty and Nastier spoke of a restaurant 1 block away. Perhaps we misunderstood... perhaps we were given misdirections, but we ended up wandering around Miraflores in search of food. How is it that two grown women can walk city block after city block and not be able to locate a single place to eat. We probably walked 5 miles if not more in search of food. Settling on a shitty buffet in a grocery store, we gleefully consumed gizzards, peppers, onions and rice. At least the chocolate cake was the bomb. Back to the hotel for a nap and the orientation.
After orientation, we briefly rested and decided it would be best to eat dinner in the restaurant located in the hotel. Another hot shower, journalling and bed. 10:00PM and we were grateful for our cold damp bed and 99 channels on the tv "en espanol".
Life is good.
