.jpg)
8:00 AM Thursday
One of the frustrating things about the last 5 days is the constant uncertainty about what is going to happen next. If we just had an idea of timing we could have actually been enjoying ourselves as we stay in incredibly nice accommodations. I guess we´re spoiled, huh? But, after we had our hopes up this morning about getting to meet up with the ship we just got a report from the Regent Manager of Guest Relations, Gair O’Neill, that they have been unsuccessful in organizing a charter plane because we now have to fly from Peru into Chile and the Peruvian government won´t approve the charter without 72 hours notice. They are still trying to negotiate (this is a 3rd world country of sorts…..maybe payola?) so we won´t have more news until noon today. Best case, we leave this afternoon for Santiago and meet up with the ship tomorrow. Worst case? There really isn’t a worse case at this point other than we just can’t get out of Peru for several days. I guess we could all just take individual flights to somewhere that ends up in Santiago but that would have to be by Friday afternoon since we are chasing a ship that is moving at 15 knots.
The group remains in incredibly good spirits and most look great considering most of us only had the clothes on our back and perhaps 1 change of clothes with us when we started this adventure.
Margaret isn’t feeling well this morning. She is a bit congested and has some “montezuma’s revenge”. Not surprising since we have been in 3rd world countries and have gone from sea level to 12,000 feet and higher, back to 7,000 feet, back to 12,000 feet, took a flight and now are back to sea level in the last couple of days.
I am getting more contact from friends of people on the cruise about pictures and videos so they can link to their personal blogs. Please be patient as I don´t have any way to get pictures out of my cameras while we are here. I DO have a LOT of pictures and videos and we hope to gather the best of everyone´s pictures to consolidate content when we get to the ship. I can guarantee you that there will be a great deal of high quality pictures and videos. We are planning to make an iPhoto hard cover book that everyone can buy from Apple´s site.
12:00 Noon Thursday
As we are stuck here at the hotel I have been busying myself by helping some of my fellow cruisers with their camera related questions. Things like finding out that they are imprinting every picture with the Date and Time (Ugh!!), setting their image size from 12 mb to 8 mb because they keep running out of disk space, teaching them that there IS a different world than Auto mode, etc., etc.
The latest news is that they are trying to charter private jets that hold 20 people because they don’t have to get government approval for landing rights with smaller private planes. No planes yet so they may have to wait until tomorrow. We’re looking at taking a commercial flight that wouldn’t get into Santiago until 3 am tomorrow morning and we are concerned about leaving the group. We put the flight on hold are are sitting tight until the next update from Regent.
1:30 pm Thursday
Just had a nice lunch with our new friends from Incline Village, Nick and Sherrie. Margaret came down and is feeling better. No news yet on jet progress. We have a flight reserved as I discussed before but haven’t pulled the trigger. We really have mixed feelings about leaving the group but we sort of figure that the few people that are here, the more flexibility that Regent will have. I just discovered that two reporters that we met at the Inkaterra got their report on CNN’s ireport. It is a video shot with their Nikon D90 on the patio of the hotel’s dining room. They also went with me when the first helicopter came in the day before we left.
4:30 pm Thursday
We just got word from Gair that they now have a jet (probably a 737) chartered and it has all the requisite paperwork for flights between Peru and Chile. We will be leaving the hotel at 5:00 AM tomorrow morning for an 8 AM departure. With the 4 hour flight and the 2 hour forward time change and the 1.5 hour bus ride to the docks we should arrive at the ship (Yeah!!) at about 3 pm. Everyone is feeling pretty good about this. Margaret is doing a conference call out on the street and is feeling much better after taking some stomach medicine. A number of people have the same problem.
There are a number of good news stories now available online about the Macchu Picchu flooding and aftermath. Here are a couple.
This one was done by a couple who were at Macchu Picchu on vacation. I talked with them quite a bit and we were there together when the first helicopter arrived. This video was shot on the porch where we had breakfast at the Inkaterra.
http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/ireports/2010/01/27/ireport.peru.symon.ireport?iref=allsearch
Lima Picture Gallery: http://travelwithdm.smugmug.com/Travel/South-America/Lima-Jan-28-2010/25166406_v3Hzfc#!i=2064005021&k=2Fcz7Ln
Dale
Fred Kurasiewicz - Barbara and I have been enjoying reading the updates on your blog since we disembarked the Mariner in Lima. It’s almost like experiencing an extended cruise! Anxious to know about Antartica. Keep it all coming!
Dale - That’s great! We miss you guys. It is sort of sad to make friends and see them leave so soon. It’s getting rough as we head to Antarctica. Thanks for keeping up with us!
Dale