October 23rd, 2021
After a year’s hiatus of travelling thanks to Covid, I decided that my next destination Wandergliding would be Peru. Last year I merely hung out in Victoria, which was great, but it was time to knock another country or two off of my list. Most people immediately think of Machu Picchu when Peru is mentioned. It hasn’t been a high priority on my bucket list but paragliding in Lima sure was so why not…Vamos!
Prior to leaving Canada I had to get a Covid test 72 hours
before boarding the plane. It was hard
to know whether that was 3 days before getting on the plane from Kelowna to
Toronto where I had a 17 hour layover, or from hopping on the jet from Toronto
out of Canada. I hedged my bets and got
one 70 hours before the flight out of Toronto but the results should be ready
before I leave Kelowna. It was my first
Covid test, and hopefully my last. The
guy at the drugstore in Toronto was pretty gentle but man did my eyes water, so
much so that I had to close my eyes as the tears welled up. He finished one nostril in what seemed to be
an excruciatingly long 15 seconds. I was
going to ask for a reprieve before tackling the other side, but he just went at
it and I just thought “Well, let’s get it over with”. Thankfully my results were returned within 24
hours and it was negative.
My flying buddy Bala drove me to the airport and it was a direct flight out to Taranna (a slang way of saying Toronto). It was a nice flight out, although cloudy over the best bit, the Rockies. I was a bit shocked at one point when I saw a plane whipping past in the opposite direction about 2 kilometres away. I was near the wing, and it appeared as thought it was at the same altitude. If you know anything about aviation, eastbound planes fly at odd thousands while westbound are at even thousands. Perhaps they were a thousand feet below us, but it sure didn’t look like it!
Somewhere over Manitoba:
As we approached Toronto, a few young teenage girls in the row
behind me said some interesting things. “Is
that the ocean?” – speaking of Lake Ontario.
“I think it’s the Pacific.” I was
a bit gobsmacked as we just flew 4 hours away from the Pacific. I didn’t say anything. But then one of them said something rather
prophetic… Down below were cookie cutter
suburbs where the houses were all similar and packed together. “That looks like a prison world down there.” I thought yah girl, I think you’re right on
that one…all of those people tied down to mortgages that causes them to have to
put up with commuting in dense traffic everyday to pay them off. I couldn’t help but smile a bit.
The layover in TO was on purpose so I could catch up with one of my best friends through high school and university, Slick, and hopefully another good buddy, Sid. Slick picked me up and brought be back to his place in Kitchener. Later, Sid and his little dog Comet came by, and it was great to catch up with those guys. We stayed up until about 1 am which was later than I had anticipated seeing that we had to get up at 5:30 am in order for me to catch my 10 am flight.
The next flight was with Panama’s Copa Airlines all the way to Panama City where I had a short layover before hopping down to Lima. The flights headed pretty much straight south from Toronto although Peru is one hour behind or two hours ahead of BC. I arrived in the early evening and it took at least an hour to get through immigration. I was asked for proof of my Covid test but I was surprised that they didn’t ask if I was vaccinated. Additionally, the immigration officer didn’t even ask how long I planned to stay. That was interesting since when I booked my flight, I had done some cursory research as to how long I could stay in Peru and whether I needed a visa. Canadians don’t require one and it seemed that a six month stay was fine. However, before the trip but after I booked my ticket, I spoke to my friend Lisa who is in Peru (I met her 7-8 years ago when I was stuck in Goa) and she stated that I’d likely be told I can only stay 90 days. Uh oh…I had booked a return ticket for 95 days after my arrival date. This had caused me a slight bit of panic but then I decided that I would fly to Ecuador for about a month in the middle of my trip which would solve the problem. I originally wanted to go to both countries but Lisa told me that the land borders were closed and with Covid so that just seemed like an unnecessary complication. Now I could visit both but it actually hadn’t been necessary for me to do so. Perhaps a bit of serendipity.
The Panamanian coast line. Panama City is hiding in the distance. I was there in 2015 and it's amazing how many skyscrapers there are.
After grabbing my backpack from the baggage area, I planned on getting a sim card so that I could contact my Airbnb host Sheyla. It was the first time staying at an Airbnb. I approached a little both for Claro, the most popular phone carrier in Peru. With my broken Spanglish I tried to ask for a sim but the woman said in Spanish that I’d have to do that in the city…damn. I tried to connect to the airport’s Wi-Fi to contact Sheyla but I had technical difficulties connecting to the Airbnb webpage. Well, I had the address so I decided to just go for it and got a taxi into Miraflores, the posh seaside neighbourhood which would be my home for the next week.
From reading the reviews of the place on Airbnb, I knew that
it was on a closed off street that only allowed pedestrians so the taxi driver
got me as close as possible, but I still was unsure of where the building was
and it was dark out. I made sure that
the taxi remained while I asked a security in the street for help and
thankfully he knew where I should go.
There was a front desk guard in the foyer who didn’t speak any English,
but he understood that I was staying in the Airbnb, gave me three keys on a ring
and told me to go up to the 17th and top floor of the building. I tried each key and eventually got the door
open but was then presented with a predicament.
There were four rooms: A, B, C and D and I had no idea which one was
mine and so I began trying each key on each door (felt like I was in a game
show!). Well behind door C some woman
called out from inside. “Disculpe, soy
Dave por Airbnb” I tried to respond. It
was only a bit after 9 pm but she didn’t sound interested in opening her door
to help me out. I returned to the front
desk and luckily a young woman was just coming in the building and the doorman
asked Fatima to help me out. Turns out
she lived in room B and the owner Sheyla is in D so she got me sorted. My room was A. The room was just like in the pictures and it
looked great. The last few weeks at the
flight park were quite hectic with the last students finishing up, closing the
park and packing for the trip so I hadn’t had much time to do any planning of
my itinerary apart from arriving in Lima so I now had a week to relax, do some
planning and hopefully some paragliding!
My home for the week:
Hola Peru!
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