Travel

In an attempt to keep things organized, I'm going to blog by category! Since traveling to Peru was where the trip began I decided I'd start with that! Clever, huh! On this trip we traveled by air, van, land-bruiser, combie, taxi, and foot!

On Tuesday, July 6th we flew from DFW to Houston to Panama City, Panama to Lima, Peru! The total travel time was about 12 hours, in other words, it was a LONG day! Upon arriving in Lima (and praising God that all our luggage made it) and getting the "green light" we met Brian and began the even longer trek to Chavin. By the time the van ride began, it was about 2 a.m. on Wednesday!

(Side note-when going through customs in Peru you press a big button, and those who get a green light walk right through. Those who do not, stay and un-pack EVERYTHING to make sure they're not sneaking anything in. We were a little worried about this because we had 3 extra suitcases of random stuff for Brian, Jenn, and the boys...we didn't want to have to unpack or lose any of their much needed stuff. We pressed the button three times for our group and got a green light each time!)

Because I am an occasional victim to motion-sickness and because I knew we would be traveling in the mountains I took dramamine before we left the airport. I believe I was passed out about thirty minutes later and the entire 12+ hour ride to Chavin was very much a blur. This was a blessing and a curse! A blessing because hello, who wants to be awake for 12 hours of bumpy van ride?? And a curse because Haley and I were teased quite a bit for sleeping the entire way and not knowing about anything that happened during that leg of the trip! They were all just jealous they weren't in a drug-induced coma too! All of that to say, I don't have many details about the ride to Chavin. I do know that it took us 12+ hours to go approximately 200 miles away from Lima (if you were traveling in a straight line). CRAZY!! I also managed to come out of the fog long enough to snap a picture or two of this pretty lake up in the mountains...


These kids were looking cute and charging money for you to take their picture!


Once we got to Chavin we mostly traveled around town on foot. You could get just about anywhere in Chavin with ten minutes or less of walking. Occasionally, we all piled in Brian and Jenn's car, affectionately called the Land-bruiser. The people of Chavin didn't really know what to think about 13 gringos all piled in one car! If we had to travel to the next town, San Marcos, we split up and rode in the Land Bruiser and a combie (imagine a mini-van taxi with 12 seats that you can pile approximately 20 people into)! Most of the roads were paved but because of land-slides a lot of them are covered in dirt and rocks which makes for a very BUMPY ride! They also do this thing where they swerve to avoid pot-holes and other extra-bumpy parts of the road. It's all good until you see yourself swerving towards the edge of the road which also happens to be the side of a mountain!

After a week in Chavin we loaded up the same van and began the trek back down the mountain and back to Lima. We had our fingers crossed for a shorter return trip, but alas, it was even longer this time! The highlight of this day was probably a little unplanned stop for construction (when they're working on a two-lane road there is no-where to pass it). I was kind of sleeping (of course) and I heard someone in the back tell everyone to look out the front windshield. I open my eyes to find a man peeing at the back of the van in front of us, totally facing us! I couldn't believe it and shielded my eyes immediately!! I did manage to stay awake for a good portion of this trip and that allowed me to do a little video-ing. This is very rough but hopefully gives you a little idea what the road was like in places.



In Lima, we either walked or traveled by taxi. I have never seen traffic like that in my life! They turn right from the left-hand lane and left from the right-hand lane. They pretty much ignore stop signs and squeeze about 8 rows of cars into 4 "real" lanes! Everyone kept saying it was even worse than New York City traffic. I could not believe that we didn't witness a single accident! I tried to do a little more video-ing in a taxi...not sure you get the full effect because this was a Saturday...



Sunday morning we loaded up on a plane out of Lima, and after stops in Panama City and Houston we were home!