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Well, the Independent 8 has shrunk to the Independent 6 (2 went home yesterday) and we have been officially merged into the original Regent 68 (now down to 56 as non-65 day cruisers head home) to form the Regent 64. Yesterday, Lima Tours working with Regent arranged a charter jet with Peru Star airlines on a BA 146 jet from Cusco to Lima. We were bused to the airport with a tour guide who gave us the basics of Cusco. It was a nice day with white puffy clouds and blue skies which was a blessing to the locals who are being hit with flooded rivers, landslides and muddy streets.
We quickly went through security at the airport and waited less than an hour before boarding the very nice 80 passenger jet. No assigned seats and only about 5 empty seats on the plane. The flight was pretty smooth except for a couple bumps as we descended. The view was spectacular with beautiful green mountains and plateaus, windy roads that looked like someone had randomly placed rope on the mountain tops and brown surging rivers in all the canyons. We flew over the ocean before entering the pattern for Lima airport and enjoying an uneventful landing. A shuttle ride to the terminal and short walk to two buses had us on our way.
A tour guide gave us an overview of Lima before we arrived in about 40 minutes at the Novatel Hotel in the high rent district of Lima. Very nice, modern hotel with all the amenities including 4 internet PC’s and 2 iMacs!! What more could you ask for? They put us in a conference room, gave us all Pisco Sours (funny we were given them free everywhere on our trip and we all missed Pisco!) some simple paperwork, took our passports one more time and then the VP Customer Service from Regent gave us a short talk. He had flown in from Miami and will be with us until we reach the ship. That was a nice touch. Finally we all got our check in information and went to our rooms.
They had a dinner planned for us that included a bus ride to a pyramid and some type of show (I’ll get more info later and fill it in). Margaret had some work to do and wasn’t feeling well so we stayed back, went to the bar and had dinner in the hotel restaurant. We met a few friends and had a good time. I also spent some time watching a film crew setup for a hotel promotion video shoot with their new Panasonic high end video camera!
The dinner was very good, we met a few more people from our cruise and heard a harrowing story about how one of our group almost lost his laptop that had EVERYTHING on it. Not a fun time, but the good news is he got his laptop back miraculously. YEAH!!! More on that later. The group returned at 10 pm and they had a great time that even included a fireworks show. Nice touch.
We are having breakfast in 5 minutes at 8 am at which point they will tell us when the charter is leaving. We will fly into a city in Chile called Olletamdo(?), take a 20 minute bus ride to the ship and get started with the next phase on the ship. There is a betting pool going on where you pick the exact minute that the first Regent 80 member scans their boarding card. I think that Margaret picked some times between 4 and 4:30. I am hoping for earlier. No reason not to be optimistic at this point!
The sad part of this story that really concerns me is that 1700 people are still trapped in Aguas Caliente. They have a larger number of helicopters running now but they also have more police being shipped their because of the unrest. Apparently the police actually had to fire at some people and it could get very bad as people start arguing about who should go next. I’ll report more on the story as I have time to research it. We were very lucky to get out when we did because shortly after we left is when the problems started. As you’ll see in the videos and pictures soon every time the helicopters came in about 10 policeman had their rifles drawn and pointed in our direction. Now we know why. 10 people have died, 2 in a landslide on the Inca Trail and 8 in other flood related problems around the area.
Dale
Cusco Picture Gallery: http://travelwithdm.smugmug.com/Travel/South-America/Cusco-Jan-27-2010/25166367_9D6Ss2#!i=2064001928&k=JHhGF7p
Barbara Dratch - Hi,
Kathy clued me into your blog and what was happening. I just saw a clip about the rescue on MSNBC – said the worst flooding in Peru in over 15 years! Glad you two got out safely and can continue on your journey. It is great that you are letting others share in your experiences.
Be well,
Barbara
Dale - Thanks for joining us! I feel very badly (even guilty) that all of us got out and so many remain in increasingly dangerous conditions. I just heard that at least one person was washed into the river trying to hike down the tracks to get out. Fortunately, it appears he was rescued. If we hadn’t gotten out when we did we would have been forced to hike out as well. It is the only way to get out. Very much like being on an island only you can´t even swim to get out and no chance of making a raft.
It´s looking like there is a chance we might not get out today as they don´t have a plane yet. We may have to go to Santiago tomorrow. Ugh.
Margaret - Hey Barb! It was a very crazy time in Peru…glad to be out of there. Lot’s of folks lost their homes and they ended up rescuing about 4,000 tourists and locals. Pretty crazy scene. We are back on the ship now so we are doing much better! Hope all is well with you and TD — hope you continue to check the blog! Love, Margaret
Barbara Dratch - Hi,
Kathy clued me into your blog and what was happening. I just saw a clip about the rescue on MSNBC – said the worst flooding in Peru in over 15 years! Glad you two got out safely and can continue on your journey. It is great that you are letting others share in your experiences.
Be well,
Barbara